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Lookup NU author(s): Emeritus Professor David Brooks
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
© 2024 The Author(s). Psychophysiology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Psychophysiological Research.Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is the subject of exploration as an adjunct treatment for neurological disorders such as epilepsy, chronic migraine, pain, and depression. A non-invasive form of VNS is transcutaneous auricular VNS (taVNS). Combining animal models and positron emission tomography (PET) may lead to a better understanding of the elusive mechanisms of taVNS. We evaluated the acute effect of electrical stimulation of the left vagus nerve via the ear on brain synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2A (SV2A) as a measure of presynaptic density and glucose metabolism in naïve rats. Female Sprague–Dawley rats were imaged with [11C]UCB-J (n = 11) or [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose ([18F]FDG) PET (n = 13) on two separate days, (1) at baseline, and (2) after acute unilateral left taVNS or sham stimulation (30 min). We calculated the regional volume of distribution (VT) for [11C]UCB-J and standard uptake values (SUV) for [18F]FDG. We observed regional reductions of [11C]UCB-J binding in response to taVNS ranging from 36% to 59%. The changes in taVNS compared to baseline were significantly larger than those induced by sham stimulation. The differences were observed bilaterally in the frontal cortex, striatum, and midbrain. The [18F]FDG PET uptake remained unchanged following acute taVNS or sham stimulation compared to baseline values. This proof-of-concept study shows for the first time that acute taVNS for 30 min can modulate in vivo synaptic SV2A density in cortical and subcortical regions of healthy rats. Preclinical disease models and PET ligands of different targets can be a powerful combination to assess the therapeutic potential of taVNS.
Author(s): Binda KH, Real CC, Simonsen MT, Grove EK, Bender D, Gjedde A, Brooks DJ, Landau AM
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Psychophysiology
Year: 2024
Pages: epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 20/10/2024
Acceptance date: 04/10/2024
Date deposited: 04/11/2024
ISSN (print): 0048-5772
ISSN (electronic): 1469-8986
Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Inc
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.14709
DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14709
Data Access Statement: The data will be made available by the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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