TY  - JOUR
A1  - Steidel, Kenan
A1  - Krause, Kristina
A1  - Menzler, Katja
A1  - Strzelczyk, Adam
A1  - Immisch, Ilka
A1  - Fuest, Sven
A1  - Gorny, Iris
A1  - Mross, Peter
A1  - Hakel, Lukas
A1  - Schmidt, Laura
A1  - Timmermann, Lars
A1  - Rosenow, Felix
A1  - Bauer, Sebastian
A1  - Knake, Susanne
T1  - Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation influences gastric motility: A randomized, double-blind trial in healthy individuals
T2  - Brain stimulation
N2  - Background: Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has been investigated regarding its therapeutic properties in several several conditions such as epilepsy, migraine and major depressive disorder and was shown to access similar neural pathways as invasive vagus nerve stimulation. While the vagus nerve's role in gut motility is physiologically established, the effect of taVNS has scarcely been investigated in humans and yielded conflicting results. Real-time gastric magnetic resonance imaging (rtMRI) is an established reproducible method to investigate gastric motility non-invasively. Objective: To investigate the influence of taVNS on gastric motility of healthy participants using rtMRI. Methods: We conducted a randomized, double-blind study using high-frequency (HF) stimulation at 25Hz or low-frequency (LF) taVNS at 1Hz after ingestions of a standardized meal in 57 healthy participants. The gastric motility index (GMI) was determined by measuring the amplitude and velocity of the peristaltic waves using rtMRI. Results: After HF taVNS, GMI was significantly higher than after LF stimulation (p = 0.005), which was mainly attributable to a higher amplitude of the peristaltic waves (p = 0.003). Conclusion: We provide evidence that 4-h of taVNS influences gastric motility in healthy human participants for the first time using rtMRI. HF stimulation is associated with higher amplitudes of peristaltic waves in the gastric antrum compared to LF stimulation. Further studies are needed to investigate the effect of different frequencies of taVNS and its therapeutic properties in conditions with impaired gastric motility.
KW  - Vagus nerve
KW  - tVNS
KW  - Vagus nerve stimulation
KW  - Gastric motility
KW  - Gut
KW  - Real-time MRI
Y1  - 2021
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/63069
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-630695
SN  - 1876-4754
N1  - The authors would like to acknowledge funding for the EpimiRNA-Project from the European Union's ‘Seventh Framework’ Programme (FP7) under Grant Agreement no. 602130.
VL  - 14
IS  - 5
SP  - 1126
EP  - 1132
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - New York, NY [u.a.]
ER  -