Vagus nerve stimulation reduces snacking amount and speed subtly
AppetiteCheck: Feasibility of Momentary Vagus Nerve Stimulation as an Implicit Intervention for Eating Behavior
Human-Computer InteractionEmerging Technologies
Summary
Many people eat too much or eat when they feel upset, which can be unhealthy. The vagus nerve connects the brain and stomach and can affect hunger. The authors tested a small device that gently stimulates this nerve without surgery while people snacked. They found that people ate less and more slowly when the nerve was stimulated, but still felt full afterward. This suggests a simple, barely noticeable way to help control eating habits using wearable technology.
What this means in practice
- •For wearable device developers: Design handheld devices that discreetly reduce snacks intake by gently stimulating the vagus nerve during eating episodes.$Commercial implications: Enables development of non-invasive consumer devices for appetite control using vagus nerve stimulation.
- •For health app developers: Integrate low-effort physiological interventions triggered by eating-related sensing to support better eating habits.
Authors
Tan Gemicioglu, Jas Brooks, Pedro Lopes, Tanzeem Choudhury
Abstract
Overeating and emotional eating are common health issues that affect people even without an eating disorder. The vagus nerve plays a critical role in the gut-brain axis, and implanted vagus nerve stimulators have been associated with reduced appetite. In this paper, we propose transcutaneous cervical vagus nerve stimulation (tcVNS) as a ubiquitous system to provide immediate, low-effort intervention during an eating episode. In a study with 24 participants, we evaluated a mobile, handheld tcVNS device during a single episode of distracted snacking. We found that participants ate 9.6% less and 23.6% more slowly during vagus nerve stimulation than during sham stimulation. Post-snacking satiety was the same in both conditions, while heart rate was lower during vagus nerve stimulation. The stimulation was described as subtle and barely noticeable. Overall, these results provide evidence for the feasibility of non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation as a low-attention intervention for managing eating behavior -- one that can be packaged inside ubiquitous interactive systems. As such, we extend the design space of implicit interfaces toward physiological intervention, motivating future ubiquitous systems that pair eating-related sensing with low-attention interventions.