Tragus based Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Stress Reduction

Surej Mouli, Ramaswamy Palaniappan, Jane Ollis, Ian McLoughlin, Rahul Kanegaonkar, Rahul Kanegaonkar, Sunil Arora

2021

Abstract

Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation is fast becoming a popular alternative treatment method for various health disorders. The authors investigated the effects of auricular vagus nerve stimulation at tragus for activating the parasympathetic nervous system to reduce stress, in light of mixed results from other studies. Stimulation frequency of 25 Hz with a pulse-width of 200 µs was administered at tragus with ECG data recorded during pre- and post-stimulation trials to investigate changes in the low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) parameters of heart rate variability (HRV). The results from five subjects demonstrate an increase in the HF component and a decrease in LF when comparing pre- and post-stimulation values, denoting that VNS stimulated more of the parasympathetic activity. The LF/HF ratio was reduced for all participants after stimulation, with an average reduction of 64.5% observed. Overall, this study has indicated the feasibility of using tragus as a stimulation site to stimulate the vagus nerve; tragus being easier to administrate than many alternative sites while still being effective for stress reduction.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Mouli S., Palaniappan R., Ollis J., McLoughlin I., Kanegaonkar R. and Arora S. (2021). Tragus based Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Stress Reduction. In Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2021) - Volume 4: BIOSIGNALS; ISBN 978-989-758-490-9, SciTePress, pages 164-168. DOI: 10.5220/0010222200002865

in Bibtex Style

@conference{biosignals21,
author={Surej Mouli and Ramaswamy Palaniappan and Jane Ollis and Ian McLoughlin and Rahul Kanegaonkar and Sunil Arora},
title={Tragus based Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Stress Reduction},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2021) - Volume 4: BIOSIGNALS},
year={2021},
pages={164-168},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0010222200002865},
isbn={978-989-758-490-9},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 14th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2021) - Volume 4: BIOSIGNALS
TI - Tragus based Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Stress Reduction
SN - 978-989-758-490-9
AU - Mouli S.
AU - Palaniappan R.
AU - Ollis J.
AU - McLoughlin I.
AU - Kanegaonkar R.
AU - Arora S.
PY - 2021
SP - 164
EP - 168
DO - 10.5220/0010222200002865
PB - SciTePress