Title:Vagus nerve stimulation in treating depression: A tale of two stories.
Volume: 16
Issue: 1
Author(s): T.-F. Yuan, A. Li, X. Sun, O. Arias-Carrión and S. Machado
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Vagus nerve stimulation, depression, neurogenesis, hippocampus, monoamine, brain-derived
neurotrophic factor.
Abstract: Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) has been widely used to treat different neurological disorders,
especially epilepsy. Accumulating evidence also suggests its potential application in antidepressive therapy,
given that VNS has been confirmed by several clinical trials to exert long-term effects on mitigating depression
and reducing the risk of relapse in depressed patients. Likewise, VNS has also proven to ameliorate the
behavioral deficits in a rat model of depression. While the influences of VNS on monoamine metabolism and
mood improvement are well-recognized, the underlying mechanisms mediating its antidepressive action
remain poorly understood. Recent findings suggest that VNS-enhanced proliferation of hippocampal neural
progenitor cells (NPCs) and synaptic transmission might serve as a monoamine-independent pathway
contributive to the beneficial effects of VNS on depression. Here we briefly reviewed the recent progress in this
field, based on which we propose that there might be, at least, two little-overlapped, and yet interactive
pathways mediating the antidepressive action of VNS.
