Vagal Nerve Stimulation for Motor and Non-Motor Benefits in Stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury

Dear Colleagues,

Vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) has emerged as a powerful neuromodulation approach for treating a wide range of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. Beyond its clinical applications, VNS provides a unique platform for investigating how peripheral afferent signaling shapes cellular excitability, synaptic plasticity, network signaling and dynamics, and neuromodulator release across distributed central and peripheral nervous system circuits. Growing evidence indicates that VNS engages evolutionarily conserved pathways regulating cortical state, autonomic integration of the nervous system, angiogenesis, inflammation, metabolism, learning, and homeostasis, yet the underlying biological mechanisms remain poorly understood.

This Special Issue aims to provide a comprehensive and mechanistic overview of VNS, with emphasis on cellular, synaptic, circuit, and systems-level processes that mediate its effects within and beyond behaviorally perceived and measured outcomes. We welcome contributions that examine how different modes of VNS (implanted, transauricular, transdermal) modulate neural signaling, neurotransmitter release, oscillatory dynamics, gene expression, neuroimmune interactions, and network connectivity in both central and peripheral circuits. By highlighting advances across molecular, electrophysiological, anatomical, and network-level analyses, this Special Issue will enhance understanding of the fundamental biological principles by which vagal afferent signaling shapes brain function and behavior. Particular emphasis will be placed on mechanistic links between VNS and non-motor and motor domains, including cognition, mood, autonomic regulation, pain processing, digestion, and sleep from a basic neuroscience and systems biology perspective. Similarly, this Special Issue invites articles focused on recovery of motor function after stroke, such as studies focused on balance, motor learning carryover, reach and grasp, or walking from a basic neuroscience and systems biology perspective.

This Special Issue will align closely with the journal’s focus on basic biology and fundamental mechanisms, while providing a conceptual framework for how vagal neuromodulation influences distributed biological systems.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

• Cellular and synaptic mechanisms of vagal afferent signaling
• Neurotransmitter and neuromodulator dynamics induced by VNS
• Electrophysiological and oscillatory signatures of VNS at circuit level
• Structural and functional network reorganization following VNS
• Neuroimmune, metabolic, and autonomic pathways engaged by VNS
• Comparative and preclinical models of vagal neuromodulation
• Mechanistic studies linking VNS to learning, plasticity, and homeostasis

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Deepak Kumbhare
Dr. Julie Lynn Schwertfeger
Guest Editors

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• vagus nerve stimulation (VNS)
• neuromodulation
• electrophysiology
• neural circuits
• biomarkers
• EEG
• local field potentials (LFP)
• translational neuroscience
• non-invasive stimulation
• cervical VNS
• auricular VNS
• non-motor symtoms of stroke
• cognition after stroke
• implanted (iVNS), transauricular (taVNS), and transdermal (tVNS)