AURAL SKILLS DEFINITION TRIAL
Researchers are now recruiting patients for the largest clinical trial to date examining to what degree vagus nerve stimulation may help patients with depression who have been unable to find relief with other treatments. The downside of these devices, however, is that the surgery is expensive and it can take months - and sometimes as long as a year - to have an effect. Similar devices have also been approved for obesity - to help control feelings of hunger and fullness - and for the treatment of epilepsy. In the early 2000s, researchers started to show that vagus nerve stimulation could help some patients who were severely depressed and had not responded to other treatments.īy 2005, the Food and Drug Administration had approved implantable pulse-generating devices that sent electrical signals to the vagus nerve, for use in patients with treatment-resistant depression. Our understanding of the vagus nerve “continues to grow in richness and depth,” he said, but there is still much to learn about how it works. “It can sound sort of magical with all the things it does,” said Eric Porges, an assistant professor in the department of clinical and health psychology at the University of Florida who studies the vagus nerve.
There is even some preliminary research suggesting that long Covid symptoms could originate, in part, from the virus’s effect on the vagus nerve. What does the research say?Įvidence indicates that stimulating the vagus nerve can help people with epilepsy, diabetes, treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress disorder - as well as inflammatory autoimmune conditions like Crohn’s disease or rheumatoid arthritis. Today, researchers are examining how the nerve can affect psychiatric disorders, among other conditions. They later discovered that a side effect of activating the nerve was an improvement in mood. Scientists first began examining the vagus nerve in the late 1800s to investigate whether stimulating it could be a potential treatment for epilepsy. Unlike the sympathetic nervous system, which is associated with the body’s “fight or flight” response, the parasympathetic branch helps us rest, digest and calm down. The vagus is the main nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system. “It’s not a mishmash of signals,” he said. Tracey compared it to a trans-Atlantic cable. The vagus nerve picks up information about how the organs are functioning and also sends information from the brain stem back to the body, helping to control digestion, heart rate, voice, mood and the immune system.įor those reasons, the vagus nerve - the longest of the 12 cranial nerves - is sometimes referred to as an “information superhighway.”ĭr. (The word “vagus” means “wandering” in Latin.) Imagine something akin to a tree, whose limbs interact with nearly every organ system in the body. Tracey, a neurosurgeon and president of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, Northwell Health’s research center in New York. They are organized into two bundles that run from the brain stem down through each side of the neck and into the torso, branching outward to touch our internal organs, said Dr.
The term “vagus nerve” is actually shorthand for thousands of fibers. But are there other ways to activate the vagus nerve? Who would benefit most from doing so? And what exactly is the vagus nerve, anyway? Here’s a look at what we know so far. Researchers who study the vagus nerve say that stimulating it with electrodes can potentially help improve mood and alleviate symptoms in those who suffer from treatment-resistant depression, among other ailments. Now, wellness companies have capitalized on the trend, offering products like “vagus massage oil,” vibrating bracelets and pillow mists, that claim to stimulate the nerve, but that have not been endorsed by the scientific community. There are also neck and ear massages, eye exercises and deep-breathing techniques. Some of the most popular ones feature simple hacks to “tone” or “reset” the vagus nerve, in which people plunge their faces into ice water baths or lie on their backs with ice packs on their chests. TikTok videos with the hashtag “#vagusnerve” have been viewed more than 64 million times and there are nearly 70,000 posts with the hashtag on Instagram. The vagal nerve fibers, which run from the brain to the abdomen, have been anointed by some influencers as the key to reducing anxiety, regulating the nervous system and helping the body to relax. In recent years, the vagus nerve has become an object of fascination, especially on social media.
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