EEG Changes and DNA Markers Related to taVNS in Stroke Patients: a Preliminary Study

Study Summary

In the United States, more than 795,000 people have a stroke every year. Motor impairment after a stroke is common and can be debilitating. To date, there remain few treatments available to help improve motor recovery after a stroke, making this an important area of research. Novel use of neuromodulation such as Invasive Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) has been shown to improve motor recovery in stroke patients. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), in which the nerve is stimulated with electrical pulses, has demonstrated success for a variety of conditions, including inflammation, depression, cognitive dysfunction, chronic fatigue, headaches/migraines, pain, insomnia, and cardiovascular issues. Very recently, non-invasive options have been developed and might be a promising alternative. The research in this area is still very limited and much more research is needed to investigate non-invasive/trancutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) related biomechanisms and to further support its efficacy in acute patients. The purpose of this study is to build upon the current research to investigate changes in electrical brain activity (using electrophysiology) and genetic markers related to improvements in both motor and cognitive recovery following the use of taVNS vs. sham in acute stroke patients.

Primary Outcome

Resting state electroencephalogram (EEG) will be recorded with eyes open during 15 minutes using our 64 electrodes cap (actiCHamp Plus; brainproducts.com). Spectral analysis will be performed on consecutive, artifact-free, epochs of awake EEG signal. The selected epochs will be filtered (1-70 Hz, 12 db/octave), followed by a 60 Hz notch filter to suppress the noise of the electrical power line, reformatted against the linked Cz reference. In order to remove blink-artifacts, we will apply an ICA-

Interventions

• DEVICE Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation