Why the study?
Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation had recently been suggested as a potential therapy for traumatic brain injury, but its preventative efficacy against closed head injury remained to be clarified.
Does non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS) pre-treatment prevent neurological dysfunction in mice with closed head injury?
Does non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS) pre-treatment prevent neurological dysfunction in mice with closed head injury?
Prophylactic non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation may prevent neuronal dysfunction and cognitive deficits associated with traumatic brain injury.
nVNS may mitigate post-CHI cognitive deficits in mice; hypothesis-generating for human TBI trials.
Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS) has recently been suggested as a potential therapy for traumatic brain injury (TBI). We previously demonstrated that nVNS inhibits cortical spreading depolarization, the electrophysiological event underlying migraine aura, and is relevant to TBI. Our past work also suggests a role for interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β) in cognitive deficits after closed head injury (CHI) in mice. We show that nVNS pre-treatment suppresses CHI-associated spatial learning and memory impairment and prevents IL-1β activation in injured neurons, but not endothelial cells. In contrast, nVNS administered 10 min after CHI was ineffective. These data suggest that nVNS prophylaxis might ameliorate neuronal dysfunction associated with CHI in populations at high risk for concussive TBI.
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Morais et al. (2024) studied this question.
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