Original communicationDoes vagal nerve stimulation affect body composition and metabolism? Experimental study of a new potential technique in bariatric surgery
Section snippets
Subjects
Eight female pigs from a Duroc line were included in the study. Animals were housed in separate pens with constant temperature and light–dark cycle. Unlimited access to food (Mini-Porcs Maintenance Diets 127; Scientific Animal Food & Engineering) and water was provided. Pens were cleaned three times a week, and food was added twice a day.
Study design (Fig 1)
Animals lived in laboratory conditions for 1 week before the begining of the experiment. Then electrodes and stimulators were implanted. After 1 week of
Results
No particular problems were found during the implantation procedure. Mean operating time was 76 minutes (minimum 58, maximum 110). No particular surgical complication was observed during the study except 1 pig that had erosion of the skin over the subcutaneous pocket with the stimulator (during a nonstimulation period in the 8th week of the study). The pocket was laved by Betadine solution and closed by simple stitches. Lead displacement was not observed during autopsy in any case at the end of
Discussion
Vagal nerve contains approximately 95% of afferent and 5% of efferent fibers,18 so it is a sensory rather than an effector nerve. It is involved in the short-term regulation of feeding by transmitting signals from the gastrointestinal tract and the liver. Afferent signals travel in vagal nerve fibers from stretch receptors and chemoreceptors, which are activated by the presence of nutrients in the stomach and in the proximal small intestine that are involved in meal termination. Nutrients
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2018, Brain ResearchCitation Excerpt :In a pair-fed study, rats receiving 4 weeks of VNS still had significantly lower weight than sham-operated, pair-fed rats (7.5%) albeit with smaller differences than with free feeding (25%) (Banni et al., 2012), suggesting important changes in both food intake and metabolism to achieve weight loss with VNS. On the metabolic side, 12 weeks of VNS in obese pigs restored glucose metabolism (Malbert et al., 2017); 4 weeks of VNS in pigs did not change the O2 consumption or CO2 production (Sobocki et al., 2006), and 15 patients receiving VNS for epilepsy exhibited increased energy expenditure related to changes in the activity of brown adipose tissue (Vijgen et al., 2013), although these latter findings may be confounded by a lack of validated methods (Malbert et al., 2017). Overall, these data suggest that both change in food intake (quantity and content), as well as changes in metabolism, may contribute to weight loss with VNS.
Effects of chronic abdominal vagal stimulation of small-diameter neurons on brain metabolism and food intake
2017, Brain StimulationCitation Excerpt :Chronic vagal stimulation has the potential for weight control [3], but the animal and human data are ambiguous [4–6]. This might relate to the different modalities of stimulation, including the location of the stimulating electrodes [7], the number of electrodes for bilateral or unilateral stimulation [8], the stimulation profile and current intensity [9,10]. In addition, body mass index [11] and diets [12] are confounding factors.
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2017, Epilepsy and Behavior Case ReportsHypothalamic control of hepatic lipid metabolism via the autonomic nervous system
2014, Best Practice and Research: Clinical Endocrinology and MetabolismCitation Excerpt :Although the brain and autonomic nervous system seem inaccessible for treatment of metabolic disease in humans, fascinating research is being performed to open this door. Several animal studies found associations between decreased body weight gain and vagal nerve stimulation, although small retrospective studies in humans with a vagal nerve stimulator for the treatment of epilepsy are inconclusive on this matter [81–84]. Larger prospective studies including different components of the metabolic syndrome are necessary to show that this could indeed be a novel treatment as previously hypothesized [85].
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