vagus nerve stimulation tagged posts

Physical pain is essential for survival, as it allows animals to detect when they are injured or unwell, seek shelter and address their ailments. Yet when it becomes chronic, pain can also become highly distressing and debilitating.

While there are now several therapeutic strategies for managing chronic pain, an emerging one that has been found to be particularly promising is vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). VNS entails the delivery of mild electrical pulses to the nerve that connects the brain to organs throughout the body.

Past studies suggest that VNS-based therapy can reduce the pain associated with various medical conditions, including chronic headaches, fibromyalgia and joint inflammation. The neural processes by which it can ease pain, however, are still poorly understood.

Researchers demonstrated unprecedented rates of recovery for spinal cord injuries. Individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury safely received a combination of stimulation of a nerve in the neck with progressive, individualized rehabilitation. This approach, called closed-loop vagus nerve stimulation (CLV), produced meaningful improvements in arm and hand function in these individuals.

In a new clinical study, researchers from the Texas Biomedical Device Center (TxBDC) at The University of Texas at Dallas demonstrated unprecedented rates of recovery for spinal cord injuries.

In this study, published in the journal Natu...