NCT06566118

Effects of Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation on Recovery

Effects of Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation on Recovery After Sports Activity in Young Athletes

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 40 (actual)
• Sponsor: Istanbul Gelisim University · Academic / Other
• Sex: Male
• Age: 18 Years – 25 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

During the recovery process, the activity of the sympathetic system decreases, while the activity of the parasympathetic system increases. In line with this information, the nervous system can be regulated in a noninvasive and practical way by using transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation in order to achieve rapid recovery in the athlete after the activity.

Detailed description

In sports where physical loads are high, athletes can usually participate in more than one training or race during the day. Such work increases the athlete's fatigue, affects their performance and can cause serious declines. Therefore, an efficient and effective recovery process after high-intensity work and training that causes a decrease in performance is also very important for the athlete's next performance. With the start of sports activity or exercise, sympathetic activation in the body increases and after a while reaches a plateau value at maximum activity. With the end of exercise, this time the suppressed parasympathetic activity begins to increase and the sympathetic system returns to a resting state over time. There are insufficient studies in the literature investigating the use of Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation on the athletic population. Although it is clear that the application has effects on the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, more clinical research is needed on athletes. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of auricular vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) on vagal activity by examining the effect of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation on recovery in amateur athletes through applications such as pulse and SpO2, blood pressure, perceived fatigue, and respiratory function tests.

Conditions

• Fatigue
• Recovery, Psychological

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimülation	After exercise loading, active ear VSS was applied to Group 1. Application was made simultaneously in both ears, with a 300 microsecond pulse duration, a biphasic asymmetric waveform, and a frequency of 25 Hz, for a total of 20 minutes. All assessments were recorded 3 times: at the beginning of the test, after exercise loading, and after active VSS application.
DEVICE	Sham Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimülation	After the exercise challenge, Group 2 underwent sham VSS. Device parameters were set to the same as Group 1 (300 microsecond pulse duration, biphasic asymmetric waveform, and 25 Hz frequency). Both headphones were worn for a total of 20 minutes. However, the participant heard only the device's power-on tone and received no current. All assessments were recorded three times: at the beginning of the test, after the exercise challenge, and after sham VSS.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-08-01
• Primary completion: 2025-09-15
• Completion: 2025-09-15
• First posted: 2024-08-22
• Last updated: 2026-03-25

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Turkey (Türkiye)