Non‑invasive vagus nerve stimulation in epilepsy patients enhances cooperative behavior in the prisoner’s dilemma task
The vagus nerve constitutes a key link between the autonomic and the central nervous system. Previous studies provide evidence for the impact of vagal activity on distinct cognitive processes including functions related to social cognition. Recent studies in animals and humans show that vagus ner...
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| Autoren: | , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Artikel |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Veröffentlicht: |
Philipps-Universität Marburg
2022
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| Schlagworte: | |
| Online-Zugang: | PDF-Volltext |
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| Zusammenfassung: | The vagus nerve constitutes a key link between the autonomic and the central nervous system.
Previous studies provide evidence for the impact of vagal activity on distinct cognitive processes
including functions related to social cognition. Recent studies in animals and humans show that
vagus nerve stimulation is associated with enhanced reward-seeking and dopamine-release in the
brain. Social interaction recruits similar brain circuits to reward processing. We hypothesize that
vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) boosts rewarding aspects of social behavior and compare the impact
of transcutaneous VNS (tVNS) and sham stimulation on social interaction in 19 epilepsy patients in a
double-blind pseudo-randomized study with cross-over design. Using a well-established paradigm,
i.e., the prisoner’s dilemma, we investigate effects of stimulation on cooperative behavior, as well
as interactions of stimulation effects with patient characteristics. A repeated-measures ANOVA and
a linear mixed-effects model provide converging evidence that tVNS boosts cooperation. Post-hoc
correlations reveal that this effect varies as a function of neuroticism, a personality trait linked to the
dopaminergic system. Behavioral modeling indicates that tVNS induces a behavioral starting bias
towards cooperation, which is independent of the decision process. This study provides evidence for
the causal influence of vagus nerve activity on social interaction. |
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| Beschreibung: | Gefördert durch den Open-Access-Publikationsfonds der UB Marburg. |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41598-022-14237-3 |