# Personalized tVNS device for research and treatment of PTSD

> **NIH NIH R43** · EVREN TECHNOLOGIES, INC. · 2021 · $256,581

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) afflicts as many as 8% of Americans and is growing rapidly,
including a 400% increase in veterans receiving disability benefits for PTSD since 2005 and an expected uptick
in cases for patients and clinicians from the COVID-19 pandemic. In the VA alone, the cost of treating veterans
is over $15B. Unfortunately, treatments for PTSD are often ineffective, have side effects, and high rates of
dropout. Transcutaneous Vagal Nerve Stimulation (tVNS) has shown promise in treatment of symptoms of
PTSD but there are no commercially available tVNS devices that meet the needs of researchers to develop
clinically usable solutions. Problems include device form factors (interface), dosing strategy, and the ability to
adjust stimulation titration based on patient need. This project builds on our team’s early stage prototypes to
create a clinical research tool that will accelerate the community’s (and our) ability to determine the most
efficacious use of tVNS to improve quality of life for patients with PTSD.
 Current implementations of non-invasive vagal nerve stimulation do not meet patient or researcher needs for
PTSD patients. Improved devices are needed to move this promising technology to a commercial product that
is flexible, comfortable, portable, and effectively addresses the needs of this population. Clinician-scientists
require a system which meets the complex needs for tVNS research, including high quality stimulation,
programmable stimulation parameter control, and logging of physiologic response and patient usage; while
also presenting a simple user interface for home use by patients.
 In this project we will develop Evren’s Phoenix Laboratory, which will be the first tVNS device able to meet
these complex needs for both researchers and patients. In Phase I we will develop the stimulator and sensor
hardware (Aim 1A) that serves both as the patient home-use system and also as the tethered researcher
stimulator. Next we develop the PC-based researcher interface (Aim 1B) that provides the ability to fully
optimize and configure the stimulator for clinical use, as well as securely integrate data from other systems and
store/transfer the data into secure databases. Lastly, we will implement usability testing (Aim 2) with
researchers and volunteers to obtain feedback on the performance and comfort of the system.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10156243
- **Project number:** 1R43MH125660-01
- **Recipient organization:** EVREN TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Neil R. Euliano
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $256,581
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-05-05 → 2022-01-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10156243

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10156243, Personalized tVNS device for research and treatment of PTSD (1R43MH125660-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10156243. Licensed CC0.

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