Brain Stimul
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The effect of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation on pain perception--an experimental study.
Recent preclinical work strongly suggests that vagus nerve stimulation efficiently modulates nociception and pain processing in humans. Most recently, a medical device has offered a transcutaneous electrical stimulation of the auricular branch of the vagus nerve (t-VNS) without any surgery. ⋯ Our findings of a reduced sensitivity of mechanically evoked pain and an inhibition of temporal summation of noxious tonic heat in healthy volunteers may pave the way for future studies on patients with chronic pain addressing the potential analgesic effects of t-VNS under clinical conditions.
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Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) have been frequently used to explore changes in motor cortex excitability in stroke and traumatic brain injury, while the extent of motor cortex reorganization in patients with diffuse non-traumatic brain injury remains largely unknown. ⋯ The present study demonstrated the impairment of the cortical inhibitory circuits in patients with brain injury of traumatic and non-traumatic aetiology. Moreover, the significant correlation was found between the amount of SICI and the severity of brain injury.