Journal article

Early cortical biomarkers of longitudinal transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation treatment success in depression

J Fang, N Egorova, P Rong, J Liu, Y Hong, Y Fan, X Wang, H Wang, Y Yu, Y Ma, C Xu, S Li, J Zhao, M Luo, B Zhu, J Kong

Neuroimage Clinical | ELSEVIER SCI LTD | Published : 2017

Open access

Abstract

Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS), a non-invasive method of brain stimulation through the auricular branch of the vagus nerve, has shown promising results in treating major depressive disorder (MDD) in several pilot studies. However, the neural mechanism by which the effect on depression might be achieved has not been fully investigated, with only a few neuroimaging studies demonstrating tVNS-induced changes in the brains of healthy volunteers. Identifying specific neural pathways, which are influenced by tVNS compared with sham in depressed individuals, as well as determining neurobiomarkers of tVNS treatment success are needed to advance the application of tVNS for MDD. In orde..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health


Funding Acknowledgements

This scientific work was supported by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation to Jiliang Fang (No. 30870668, 81273674), to Xiaoling Wang (No. 81303056), to Peijing Rong (No. 30973798, 81473780), to Chunhong Liu (No. 81471389); National Basic Research Program of China to Peijing Rong (973 Program, No. 2012CB518503), grant of technology development research from the Ministry of Science and Technology (2011EG152313), the National Twelfth Five-Year Plan of the National Science and Technology Support Program of China (2012BAF14B10) and the Natural Science Foundation of Beijing China to Peijing Rong (No. 7111007). Jian Kong is supported by R01AT006364 (NIH/NCCIH), R01 AT008563 (NIH/NCCIH); R21AT008707 (NIH/NCCIH), R61 AT009310 and P01 AT006663 (NIH/NCCIH). We would like to thank the reviewers for thoughtful comments and suggestions.