Chronic pain affects approximately 20% of the general population, and can be divided into nociceptive, neuropathic and nociplastic pain.  Chronic neuropathic pain concerns around 8% of the population and includes migraine and headache which are a major cause of disability.

Chronic pain patients generally have inadequate pain relief or disabling side effects using currently available treatments.  Thus, may turn to other therapeutic options, including neurostimulation. 

A device has been developed for the treatment of primary headache disorders by stimulating the cervical branch of the vagus nerve. Studies indicated that nVNS may reduce the pain associated with a migraine attack when the device was used within 20 minutes from pain onset, and reduce the onset frequency of chronic cluster headache (Moisset etal., 2019).

In addition to treatment of migraine and cluster headache, VNS has also shown to stimulate the anti-inflammatory pathways in preclinical trials for a wide range of inflammatory conditions, including: sepsis, lung injury, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, and fibromyalgia (Johnsona and Wilson, 2018).

One of the main potential benefits of tVNS for the treatment of chronic pain and inflammation is that it is a non-invasive and well-tolerated treatment. 

In terms of its effectiveness, tVNS has shown promise as a treatment for chronic pain and inflammation due to the activation of serotonergic and noradrenergic neural systems. This theory is based on reports from patients indicating a decrease in pain sensation (Johnsona and Wilson, 2018).