New Treatment Announced for PTSD – Non-Invasive Vagus Nerve Stimulation
July 07, 2022
Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS) has received “Breakthrough Device” recognition from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The foundation concept is that the commercially available stimulation device could help reduce the physiological response to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) stress triggers. The results during tests indicate the device is safe, practical, and a novel treatment worth trying.
Adding one more weapon to the arsenal against PTSD is an excellent place, as the disorder does not discriminate. It affects nearly 15 million Americans every year.
Most PTSD sufferers experience a diminished quality of life, including nightmares about their trauma, fear, sadness, detachment, and disturbing thoughts and feelings. PTSD is traumatic, and there are few effective treatment options available. This new approach to dealing with PTSD symptoms may hold out hope to thousands of sufferers, including veterans.
The study’s results were recently published in the December issue of the Journal of Affective Disorders Reports. The study intended to see if nVNS administered by a commercially available stimulation device could reduce PTSD patients’ response to stress triggers.
The handheld device, gammaCore, is used to treat migraines. However, it also reduces PTSD symptoms. The rVNS holds against the neck, and electrical stimulation is applied to the vagus nerve. According to researchers, 3 months of self-treatment by a portion of study participants resulted in a 31 percent decrease in PSTD patients’ symptoms. The results compelled the FDA to push for more widespread use of gammaCore to treat PTSD.
While it is still early to tell how well gammaCore’s device works, the results speak for themselves and offer hope to veterans who have PTSD. The further exciting news is that research being conducted at Georgia Tech envisions the current nVNS as a precursor to designing a closed-loop vagus nerve stimulation system that could measure body signals in advance and prevent the stress response. The hope is that the next generation device would prevent a stress response even before an individual’s body goes into full stress mode.
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