Bilateral transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation for the treatment of insomnia in breast cancer

Bilateral transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation for the treatment of insomnia in breast cancer | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Bilateral transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation for the treatment of insomnia in breast cancer Melissa Do, Alexandra Evancho, William J. Tyler This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7171546/v2 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Archived Versions: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Version 1 posted Abstract Substantial diagnostic and therapeutic advances have been made in medicine to address breast cancer. There remain unmet needs to translate solutions for addressing insomnia and mental health concerns in breast cancer patients. In this open-label, pilot clinical trial, we evaluated the safety and efficacy of nightly, bilateral, transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on insomnia and mental health outcomes in breast cancer patients across a two-week treatment period. Our results demonstrate that noninvasive vagus nerve stimulation can safely, comfortably, and significantly reduce insomnia severity, improve sleep quality, decrease sleep onset latency, and enhance sleep efficiency. Treatment with taVNS also significantly reduced the number of nightly awakenings, cancer-related fatigue, and depression scores while increasing heart rate variability. These observations demonstrate that auricular vagus nerve stimulation holds promise for improving sleep quality and mental health in patients diagnosed with breast cancer. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT06006299 08/21/2023 Biological sciences/Cancer Health sciences/Diseases Health sciences/Health care Health sciences/Medical research Biological sciences/Neuroscience Health sciences/Oncology neuromodulation vagus nerve stimulation insomnia mental health cancer fatigue Full Text Additional Declarations Competing interest reported. WJT is a co-founder of IST, LLC and an inventor and co-inventor on neuromodulation methods and devices for treating various disorders. All other authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Cite Share Download PDF Archived Versions: Posted Version 2 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Version 1 posted Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7171546","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[{"code":2,"date":"2025-08-08 01:50:57","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"scientific-reports","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"scirep","sideBox":"Learn more about [Scientific Reports](http://www.nature.com/srep/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Scientific Reports","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Scientific Reports","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}},{"code":1,"date":"2025-08-04 08:02:39","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":497393931,"identity":"0c4f71d0-6f56-4970-9d0b-348761b912de","order_by":0,"name":"Melissa Do","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"UAB Schools of Engineering and Medicine","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Melissa","middleName":"","lastName":"Do","suffix":""},{"id":497393932,"identity":"39b20b96-0ab4-40f7-86c8-a8e7a8925d13","order_by":1,"name":"Alexandra Evancho","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"UAB Schools of Engineering and Medicine","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Alexandra","middleName":"","lastName":"Evancho","suffix":""},{"id":497393933,"identity":"c20d342e-23c4-496f-a619-3fb144bcce50","order_by":2,"name":"William J. 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