Skip to main content
eScholarship
Open Access Publications from the University of California

UC San Diego

UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations bannerUC San Diego

Effects of sub-perceptual vagus nerve stimulation on brain activity measured intra-cranially in humans

Abstract

The general state of the human organism is modulated by the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) comprised of two balancing influences: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The basal forebrain (BF) cholinergic and the locus coeruleus (LC) noradrenergic system within the brain innervates the cerebral cortex and regulates cognitive functions such as arousal, attention, learning, and sleep. The peripheral autonomic nervous system is linked with the cortical projection systems and modulates cortical activity levels in the human brain, which has been shown in various studies of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) effect on cognitive functions, but its mechanism still remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to determine if sub-perception stimulation on the auricular branch of the vagus nerve will produce mild event-related cortical modulation. Our study provided a detailed view of local neuron population activity through depth electrodes implanted in 5 epileptic subjects, and analyzed the acute effect of VNS on intracranial EEG in post-stimulation period versus baseline in the time and frequency domains. We have found rare but significant (p < .001) small-amplitude modulations: 1) 2 out of 487 channels contain event-related changes in local field potentials activity (0.1-40Hz) located in insula and postcentral gyrus; 2) 4 out of 487 channels contain high gamma (70-190Hz) analytic amplitude decrease located in lateral temporal and frontal cortex, amplitude increase located in cingulate gyrus; and 3) 7 out of 71 channels contain α & β band power reduction located in insula, prefrontal cortex and cingulate gyrus. These results suggest that sub-perception non-invasive VNS may be able to modulate cortical activity in widely distributed regions, which provides a potential method for a variety of illness treatment such as Parkinson disease and Alzheimer’s disease.

Main Content
For improved accessibility of PDF content, download the file to your device.
Current View