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Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation towards Visually Induced Motion Sickness Reduction: A Pilot Study

Molefi, Emmanuel, McLoughlin, Ian Vince, Palaniappan, Ramaswamy (2023) Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation towards Visually Induced Motion Sickness Reduction: A Pilot Study. In: 45th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 24-27 Jul 2023, Sydney, Australia. (doi:10.1109/EMBC40787.2023.10340374) (KAR id:100887)

Abstract

Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is a novel neuromodulation application for vagal afferent stimulation. Owing to its non-invasive nature, taVNS is a potent therapeutic tool for a diverse array of diseases and disorders that ail us. Herein, we investigated taVNS-induced effects on neural activity of participants during visually induced motion sickness. 64-channel electroencephalography (EEG) recordings were obtained from 15 healthy participants in a randomized, within-subjects, cross-over design during sham and taVNS conditions. To assess motion sickness severity, we used the motion sickness assessment questionnaire (MSAQ). We observed that taVNS attenuated theta (4-8 Hz) brain activity in the right frontal, right parietal and occipital cortices when compared to sham condition. The total MSAQ scores, and central, peripheral and sopite MSAQ categorical scores were significantly lower after taVNS compared to sham. These findings reveal for the first time the potential therapeutic role of taVNS toward counter-motion sickness, and suggest that taVNS may be reliable in alleviating symptoms of motion sickness in real-time, non-pharmacologically.

Item Type: Conference or workshop item (Paper)
DOI/Identification number: 10.1109/EMBC40787.2023.10340374
Projects: DTP 2020-2021 University of Kent
Additional information: For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence (where permitted by UKRI, an Open Government Licence or CC BY ND public copyright licence may be used instead) to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising.
Uncontrolled keywords: motion sickness; vagus nerve stimulation
Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics (inc Computing science) > QA 75 Electronic computers. Computer science
R Medicine > R Medicine (General) > R858 Computer applications to medicine. Medical informatics. Medical information technology
T Technology > TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General) > TA165 Engineering instruments, meters etc. Industrial instrumentation
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences > School of Computing
Funders: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (https://ror.org/0439y7842)
Depositing User: Emmanuel Molefi
Date Deposited: 13 Apr 2023 16:24 UTC
Last Modified: 30 Jan 2024 13:39 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/100887 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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