Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College

College of Health Professions

First Advisor

Craig Velozo

Second Advisor

Patricia Coker-Bolt

Third Advisor

Dorothea D. Jenkins

Abstract

Infants who do not succeed at early feeding are likely discharged from the nursery with a gastrostomy tube (G-tube), putting them at risk for worse neurodevelopmental and sensory outcomes than infants who achieve full oral feeds. This study aims to investigate the impact of Non-invasive transcutaneous auricular vagal nerve stimulation (taVNS) on infants' early motor development and long-term neurodevelopmental sensory performance at 18 months. Besides the observed feeding improvement using taVNS paired with bottle-feeding, we explore if pre-treatment total STEP scores' is able to predict response to taVNS intervention. The pre-treatment total STEP scores did not contribute to the prediction model significantly. Then, we looked at the long-term effect of early taVNS treatment in both neurodevelopmental and sensory outcomes at 18 months follow-up. We found that infants who responded to early taVNS treatment when paired with bottle-feeding had better overall neurodevelopmental outcomes than non- responders. We also found that responders had significantly better typical scores in the general sensory section, and had more typical average mean scores in almost all the sensory profile sections than non-responders. These preliminary results are encouraging of the use of taVNS. Future studies can include randomization of active and control taVNS intervention with larger sample size.

Rights

All rights reserved. Copyright is held by the author.

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