VNS

Vagus nerve stimulation for post-concussion recovery

VNS therapy offers a non-invasive way to manage post-concussion symptoms using FDA-cleared technology, in short sessions you can complete at home.

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Mechanism

What vagus nerve stimulation does

Gentle stimulation

Mild electrical stimulation is applied to the vagus nerve — the major nerve connecting brain and body — through the skin, with no implant and no surgery.

Autonomic regulation

That stimulation activates the parasympathetic nervous system, supporting the autonomic regulation that mTBI commonly disrupts.

In practice

How treatment works

Twice daily

A five-minute session, twice a day.

Through the skin

Transcutaneous stimulation — nothing is implanted.

No downtime

No recovery period and no activity restrictions after a session.

Adjustable

Your clinician can tune the stimulation settings to your response over time.

Evidence

Where the randomised evidence actually sits

Being straight about this matters. The randomised, sham-controlled evidence for non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation is in headache disorders, not post-concussion recovery. The PRESTO trial provided controlled evidence that nVNS increases the probability of being pain-free or in mild pain two hours after treating an episodic migraine attack,¹ and pooled randomised data support its use in migraine.²

For cluster headache, nVNS holds FDA clearance; the ACT1 and ACT2 trials did not meet their primary endpoints but showed superiority over sham on secondary measures in episodic cluster headache.³

Using nVNS for post-concussion symptoms is an off-label extension of that evidence, not a separately proven indication. The rationale is mechanistic — post-traumatic headache is common after mild TBI⁶ and autonomic function is measurably disrupted⁴ — and monitoring lets us see whether an individual patient is actually responding rather than assuming they are.

Getting started

What we provide

An easy-to-use home device

Designed for daily self-administered use without clinical supervision.

Free training and setup

We walk you through the device and the routine before you start.

Professional support

Ongoing access to our care team, with monitoring data showing whether the therapy is having an effect.

References

Every figure on this page traces to a source below, so the claims can be checked rather than taken on trust.

1.PRESTO trial post hoc analysis. Practical and clinical utility of non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation for the acute treatment of migraine. Journal of Headache and Pain.
2.Systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs. Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation for migraine. Frontiers in Neurology. 2023.
3.Review. Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (gammaCore): efficacy, safety, potential impact on comorbidities, and economic burden for episodic and chronic cluster headache. American Journal of Managed Care. 2017.
4.Systematic review of 89 studies. The relationship between traumatic brain injury and disruptions in heart rate variability. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback. 2024.
5.Population-based cross-sectional study. Heart rate variability in adults with mild traumatic brain injury. Journal of the Neurological Sciences.
6.TRACK-TBI investigators. Prevalence of and risk factors for post-traumatic headache in civilian patients after mild traumatic brain injury. Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

This page is educational and is not medical advice. Prevalence figures are presented as the source reports them, including confidence intervals and ranges; a single number would imply more precision than the evidence supports.

Ask whether VNS is right for your recovery

Our nurses guide patients to the appropriate treatment based on symptoms and monitoring data.

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