TY  - JOUR
A1  - Giraudier, Manon
A1  - Ventura-Bort, Carlos
A1  - Wendt, Julia
A1  - Lischke, Alexander
A1  - Weymar, Mathias
T1  - Memory advantage for untrustworthy faces: Replication across lab- and web-based studies
JF  - PLoS ONE
N2  - The Covid-19 pandemic imposed new constraints on empirical research and forced researchers to transfer from traditional laboratory research to the online environment. This study tested the validity of a web-based episodic memory paradigm by comparing participants’ memory performance for trustworthy and untrustworthy facial stimuli in a supervised laboratory setting and an unsupervised web setting. Consistent with previous results, we observed enhanced episodic memory for untrustworthy compared to trustworthy faces. Most importantly, this memory bias was comparable in the online and the laboratory experiment, suggesting that web-based procedures are a promising tool for memory research.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0264034
SN  - 1932-6203
VL  - 17
SP  - 1
EP  - 11
PB  - PLoS ONE
CY  - San Francisco, California, US
ET  - 2
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Giraudier, Manon
A1  - Ventura-Bort, Carlos
A1  - Burger, Andreas M.
A1  - Claes, Nathalie
A1  - D'Agostini, Martina
A1  - Fischer, Rico
A1  - Franssen, Mathijs
A1  - Kaess, Michael
A1  - Koenig, Julian
A1  - Liepelt, Roman
A1  - Nieuwenhuis, Sander
A1  - Sommer, Aldo
A1  - Usichenko, Taras
A1  - Van Diest, Ilse
A1  - von Leupoldt, Andreas
A1  - Warren, Christopher Michael
A1  - Weymar, Mathias
T1  - Evidence for a modulating effect of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) on salivary alpha-amylase as indirect noradrenergic marker: A pooled mega-analysis
JF  - Brain Stimulation
N2  - Background
Non-invasive transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) has received tremendous attention as a potential neuromodulator of cognitive and affective functions, which likely exerts its effects via activation of the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline (LC-NA) system. Reliable effects of taVNS on markers of LC-NA system activity, however, have not been demonstrated yet.

Methods
The aim of the present study was to overcome previous limitations by pooling raw data from a large sample of ten taVNS studies (371 healthy participants) that collected salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) as a potential marker of central NA release.

Results
While a meta-analytic approach using summary statistics did not yield any significant effects, linear mixed model analyses showed that afferent stimulation of the vagus nerve via taVNS increased sAA levels compared to sham stimulation (b = 0.16, SE = 0.05, p = 0.001). When considering potential confounders of sAA, we further replicated previous findings on the diurnal trajectory of sAA activity.

Conclusion(s)
Vagal activation via taVNS increases sAA release compared to sham stimulation, which likely substantiates the assumption that taVNS triggers NA release. Moreover, our results highlight the benefits of data pooling and data sharing in order to allow stronger conclusions in research.
KW  - Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation
KW  - tVNS
KW  - sAA
KW  - Noradrenaline
KW  - Biomarker
KW  - Data pooling
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2022.09.009
SN  - 1876-4754
VL  - 15
SP  - 1378
EP  - 1388
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - New York, NY, USA
ET  - 6
ER  -