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The parasympathetic nervous system, whose main neural substrate is the vagus nerve, exerts a fundamental antinociceptive role and influences gastrointestinal sensori‐motor function. Our research question was to whether combined electrical and physiological modulation of vagal tone, using transcutaneous electrical vagal nerve stimulation (t‐VNS) and deep slow breathing (DSB) respectively, could increase musculoskeletal pain thresholds and enhance gastroduodenal motility in healthy subjects.

Eighteen healthy subjects were randomized to a subject‐blinded, sham‐controlled, cross‐over study with an active protocol including stimulation of auricular branch of the vagus nerve, and breathing at full inspiratory capacity and forced full expiration. Recording of cardiac derived parameters including cardiac vagal tone, moderate pain thresholds to muscle, and bone pressure algometry …