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Acute vagus nerve stimulation does not affect liking or wanting ratings of food in healthy participants

View ORCID ProfileFranziska K. Müller, View ORCID ProfileVanessa Teckentrup, View ORCID ProfileAnne Kühnel, View ORCID ProfileMagdalena Ferstl, View ORCID ProfileNils B. Kroemer
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.26.437062
Franziska K. Müller
1Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
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Vanessa Teckentrup
1Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
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Anne Kühnel
1Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
2Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry and International Max Planck Research School for Translational Psychiatry (IMPRS-TP), Munich, Germany
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Magdalena Ferstl
1Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
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Nils B. Kroemer
1Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
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  • For correspondence: nils.kroemer@uni-tuebingen.de
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Abstract

The vagus nerve plays a vital role in the regulation of food intake and vagal afferent signals may help regulate food cue reactivity by providing negative homeostatic feedback. Despite strong evidence from preclinical studies on vagal afferent “satiety” signals in guiding food intake, evidence from human studies is largely inconclusive to date. Here, we investigated the acute effects of left or right transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) on subjective ratings of wanting and liking of various food and non-food items in 82 healthy participants (46 women, MBMI = 23.1 kg/m2). In contrast to previous reports in patients with depression, we found moderate to anecdotal evidence supporting the absence of taVNS-induced changes in food ratings. To test whether the absence of taVNS effects on food ratings is due to heterogeneity in the sample, we conducted post hoc subgroup analyses by splitting the data according to stimulation side and sex (between-subject factors) as well as caloric density, perceived healthiness, and flavor (sweet vs. savory) of the food (within-subject factors). This multiverse analysis largely supported the absence of taVNS-induced changes since the strongest subgroup effects provided only anecdotal evidence in favor of taVNS-induced changes. We conclude that acute taVNS only has a marginal effect on subjective ratings of food, suggesting that it is an unlikely mechanism for the reported long-term effects of VNS on body weight. In light of an absence of acute taVNS effects on food craving, our results call for future research on the correspondence between acute and chronic effects of vagal afferent stimulation.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted March 29, 2021.
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Acute vagus nerve stimulation does not affect liking or wanting ratings of food in healthy participants
Franziska K. Müller, Vanessa Teckentrup, Anne Kühnel, Magdalena Ferstl, Nils B. Kroemer
bioRxiv 2021.03.26.437062; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.26.437062
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Acute vagus nerve stimulation does not affect liking or wanting ratings of food in healthy participants
Franziska K. Müller, Vanessa Teckentrup, Anne Kühnel, Magdalena Ferstl, Nils B. Kroemer
bioRxiv 2021.03.26.437062; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.26.437062

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