Abstract
Objective
The antiseizure effects of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) are thought to be mediated
by the modulation of afferent thalamocortical circuitry. Cross-frequency phase-amplitude
coupling (PAC) is a mechanism of hierarchical network coordination across multiple
spatiotemporal scales. In this study, we leverage local field potential (LFP) recordings
from the centromedian (CM) (n = 3) and anterior (ATN) (n = 2) nuclei in five patients with tandem thalamic deep brain stimulation and VNS
to study neurophysiological changes in the thalamus in response to VNS.
Materials and Methods
Bipolar LFP data were recorded from contact pairs spanning target nuclei in VNS “on”
and “off” states.
Results
Active VNS was associated with increased PAC between theta, alpha, and beta phase
and gamma amplitude in CM (q < 0.05). Within the ATN, PAC changes also were observed, although these were less
robust. In both nuclei, active VNS also modulated interhemispheric bithalamic functional
connectivity.
Conclusions
We report that VNS is associated with enhanced PAC and coordinated interhemispheric
interactions within and between thalamic nuclei, respectively. These findings advance
understanding of putative neurophysiological effects of acute VNS and contextualize
previous animal and human studies showing distributed cortical synchronization after
VNS.
Keywords
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Comment
Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 13, 2022
Accepted:
May 12,
2022
Received in revised form:
April 26,
2022
Received:
November 18,
2021
Footnotes
Source(s) of financial support: The authors reported no funding sources.
Conflict of Interest: Suneil K. Kalia consults for Medtronic and Abbott and has received payment or honoraria from Medtronic and Boston Scientific. George M. Ibrahim has served as a speaker, on the advisory board, and received consulting fees from LivaNova. Alfonso Fasano has received consulting fees from Abbott, Medtronic, Ipsen, Boston Scientific, Sunovion, and UCB. The remaining authors reported no conflict of interest.
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© 2022 International Neuromodulation Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
