Patients in the Experimental group underwent fourteen consecutive daily sessions of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS, twice daily, 30 minutes each time), whereas patients in the sham stimulation group underwent fourteen consecutive daily sessions of sham taVNS. Assessments of motor and non-motor symptoms, excitability of cortex motor (using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation), cortical activity (using Functional near-infrared spectroscopy) and blood indicators were performed three times: at baseline, one day post intervention, fourteen days post intervention.
This study is a double-blind comparative study examining the curative effect and mechanism of the transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation treatment on non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease patients. The investigators hypothesize that treatment using transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation will improve the non-motor symptoms, such as improving sleep, and improve cortical activity simultaneously in Parkinson's disease patients.