TY  - JOUR
A1  - D'Agostini, Martina
A1  - Burger, Andreas M.
A1  - Franssen, Mathijs
A1  - Claes, Nathalie
A1  - Weymar, Mathias
A1  - Leupoldt, Andreas von
A1  - Van Diest, Ilse
T1  - Effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on reversal learning, tonic pupil size, salivary alpha-amylase, and cortisol
JF  - Psychophysiology : journal of the Society for Psychophysiological Research
N2  - This study investigated whether transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) enhances reversal learning and augments noradrenergic biomarkers (i.e., pupil size, cortisol, and salivary alpha-amylase [sAA]). We also explored the effect of taVNS on respiratory rate and cardiac vagal activity (CVA). Seventy-one participants received stimulation of either the cymba concha (taVNS) or the earlobe (sham) of the left ear. After learning a series of cue-outcome associations, the stimulation was applied before and throughout a reversal phase in which cue-outcome associations were changed for some (reversal), but not for other (distractor) cues. Tonic pupil size, salivary cortisol, sAA, respiratory rate, and CVA were assessed at different time points. Contrary to our hypothesis, taVNS was not associated with an overall improvement in performance on the reversal task. Compared to sham, the taVNS group performed worse for distractor than reversal cues. taVNS did not increase tonic pupil size and sAA. Only post hoc analyses indicated that the cortisol decline was steeper in the sham compared to the taVNS group. Exploratory analyses showed that taVNS decreased respiratory rate but did not affect CVA. The weak and unexpected effects found in this study might relate to the lack of parameters optimization for taVNS and invite to further investigate the effect of taVNS on cortisol and respiratory rate.
KW  - cortisol
KW  - noradrenaline
KW  - pupillometry
KW  - reversal learning
KW  - salivary
KW  - alpha-amylase
KW  - transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13885
SN  - 1469-8986
SN  - 1540-5958
VL  - 58
IS  - 10
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Malden, Mass. [u.a.]
ER  -