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

Emmanuel Molefi, Ian McLoughlin, Ramaswamy Palaniappan

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.Clinical relevance— This suggests taVNS potential to offset motion sickness-induced nausea; which may be of translational value to counter e.g., chemotherapy-induced nausea.