ArticleFrontiers in neuroscience2025
Accrued reductions in heart rate following transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation in adults with posttraumatic stress disorder.
Article in Frontiers in neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Exercise-induced neuropeptidergic and neurochemical neuroadaptation in stress regulation and emotional disorders.Acta neurologica Belgica · 2026Review
- Exposure to false cardiac feedback alters pain perception and anticipatory cardiac frequency.eLife · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a condition marked by chronic autonomic dysregulation, including heightened arousal and increased heart rate, contributing to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). tcVNS has been shown in prior work to decrease arousal and reduce heart rate in participants with PTSD during stimulation and 2-3 min afterward. No studies have investigated effects of tcVNS on objective physiological markers such as heart rate over hour-long timescales. Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of active versus sham tcVNS on heart rate responses to stress in traumatized individuals with and without PTSD undergoing a 3 h traumatic stress reminder protocol. Understanding the effects of tcVNS on heart rate over extended periods lasting several hours is crucial to better assess its potential cardiovascular benefits and inform treatment strategies for this population. Methods: A total of 41 participants, including 22 with PTSD (sex: 16 female, six male; age: 41.5 ± 12.89 years) and 19 without (sex: nine female, 10 male; age: 32.79 ± 7.10 years), participated in a mechanistic clinical trial that elicited trauma-incited stress responses by replaying recorded traumatic scripts followed by active or sham tcVNS (double-blind, randomized). Continuous electrocardiogram data were collected and used to measure heart rate and temporal alignment and resampling of the beat-by-beat heart rate time series were performed to distinctively enable timepoint by timepoint averaging for the entire 3 h research visit. We then aggregated the responses across participants of the same group (active/sham × PTSD/non-PTSD) and investigated the effects of tcVNS on heart rate over the multi-hour protocol. Results: Analysis revealed accrued reductions in heart rate among participants with PTSD who received active tcVNS compared to those who received sham stimulation ( Conclusion: tcVNS induces accrued reductions in heart rate for participants with PTSD, potentially suggesting a temporary reduction of chronic cardiac arousal associated with PTSD.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.