Effect of transcutaneous cervical vagus nerve stimulation on declarative and working memory in patients with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): A pilot study.

Autor: Choudhary T; Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA; Department of Biomedical Informatics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta VA Medical Center, Decatur, GA, USA. Electronic address: tilendra.choudhary@emory.edu., Elliott M; Evren Technologies, Gainesville, FL, USA., Euliano NR; Evren Technologies, Gainesville, FL, USA., Gurel NZ; Reality Labs, Meta Platforms Inc., Menlo Park, CA, USA., Rivas AG; Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA., Wittbrodt MT; Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA., Vaccarino V; Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA; Department of Medicine, Cardiology Division, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA., Shah AJ; Department of Epidemiology, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA; Department of Medicine, Cardiology Division, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta VA Medical Center, Decatur, GA, USA., Inan OT; School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA; Coulter Department of Bioengineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA., Bremner JD; Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta VA Medical Center, Decatur, GA, USA; Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of affective disorders [J Affect Disord] 2023 Oct 15; Vol. 339, pp. 418-425. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jul 12.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2023.07.025
Abstrakt: Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with changes in multiple neurophysiological systems, including verbal declarative memory deficits. Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) has been shown in preliminary studies to enhance function when paired with cognitive and motor tasks. The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of transcutaneous cervical VNS (tcVNS) on attention, declarative and working memory in PTSD patients.
Methods: Fifteen PTSD patients were randomly assigned to active tcVNS (N = 8) or sham (N = 7) stimulation in a double-blinded fashion. Memory assessment tests including paragraph recall and N-back tests were performed to assess declarative and working memory function when paired with active/sham tcVNS once per month in a longitudinal study during which patients self-administered tcVNS/sham twice daily.
Results: Active tcVNS stimulation resulted in a significant improvement in paragraph recall performance following pairing with paragraph encoding for PTSD patients at two months (p < 0.05). It resulted in a 91 % increase in paragraph recall performance within group (p = 0.03), while sham tcVNS exhibited no such trend in performance improvement. In the N-back study, positive deviations in accuracy, precision and recall measures on different day visits (7,34,64,94) of patients with respect to day 1 revealed a pattern of better performance of the active tcVNS population compared to sham VNS which did not reach statistical significance.
Limitations: Our sample size was small.
Conclusions: These preliminary results suggest that tcVNS improves attention, declarative and working memory, which may improve quality of life and productivity for patients with PTSD. Future studies are required to confirm these results.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest J.D.B is on the Scientific Advisory Board for Evren Technologies and previously had research funding support from ElectroCore LLC. Both active and sham stimulation devices used in this study were provided by ElectroCore free of charge.
(Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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