Fig. 1

A Overview of the eCAPTURS framework (eCAPs To Unravel Responses to Stimulation), showing the relationship between stimulation parameters and responses on the nerve and the physiological level investigated in this study. The three solid arrows represent the main focus of this study. Light grey boxes indicate VNS parameters, as defined in North et al. (2022). The physiological state captures any bodily variables that might affect the short-term responses to stimulations, such as baseline heart rate or breathing rate, timing of the stimulation with respect to the cardiac (Ojeda et al. 2016) or breathing cycle (Sclocco et al. 2019) or anaesthesia (see Translation from anaesthetised to awake subjects section). B High-level representation of our VNS setting on porcine subjects: our custom neural interface delivers stimulations to the cervical vagus nerve while evoked fiber activity and short-term physiological effects (laryngeal contractions, heart rate and breathing rate changes) are recorded. C Key results reported in this study