Prolonged Longitudinal Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation Effect on Striatal Functional Connectivity in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder.

Prolonged longitudinal taVNS can modulate the striatum rsFC with the prefrontal cortex, occipital cortex, temporal cortex, and intra-striatum, and these changes partly underlie any symptomatic improvements. The results indicate that prolonged longitudinal taVNS may produce beneficial treatment effects by modulating the cortical striatum circuitry in patients with MDD.