Until recently, there was little evidence to show a direct connection between the immune system of the body and the central nervous system. But Dr. Kevin Tracey, a neurosurgeon based in New York, changed all that when he discovered that the immune system and the central nervous system are joined after all.
Rat model experimentation taught Tracey and his team that when they injected an anti-inflammatory into the brain, it also blocked inflammation in the spleen and in other organs in the rest of the body.
Since they knew they had injected too small an amount to travel to the spleen, they realized that the response had to have come from the brain itself, specifically stimulation of the vagus nerve.
The brain seemed to use the vagus nerve of the nervous system to tell the spleen to turn off inflammation throughout the body.
The vagus nerve got its name from the Latin, meaning "wandering". That's because it's very long, meandering down the neck on each side, across the chest, through the abdomen.
It's in communication with the brain about the digestive tract, the heart, intestines, kidneys, liver, lungs and spleen. It also communicates about many other nerves that participate in eye contact, facial expression, speech and comprehension of voices.
The vagus nerve has thousands of sensory fibers, among other types of fibers, and it talks to your brain about it all.
You're not aware of this communication that is going on all the time. The vagus nerve is important to the parasympathetic nervous system and calms your organs down after adrenaline surges of your stress response. It works better in some people than in others.
When you breathe in, your heart rate speeds up, moving oxygenated blood more quickly through your body. Breathing out makes your heart slow down. The vagus nerve is suppressed when breathing in, and is activated when breathing out.
The greater the contrast in your heart rate between breathing in and out, the higher your vagal tone, that is the stronger your vagal response, will be. An electrocardiogram can measure this response.
The higher your vagal tone, the more efficient you are at managing your blood sugar levels. This lowers your risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and stroke. On the other end of the spectrum, low vagal tone is linked with chronic inflammation.
The vagus nerve resets the immune system, and reduces inflammation. When vagal tone is low, these tasks are not done effectively and inflammation can run rampant.
Tracey speculated that the brain regulates bodily tissue inflammation, that immune system cells in the bloodstream and organs are linked to the nervous system and its electrical signaling. Boosting signals from the brain to the spleen telling it to turn off tumor necrosis factor (TNF) might result in less inflammation.
For 10 years he studied the scenario. Paul-Peter Tak, his collaborator, professor of rheumatology at the University of Amsterdam, had been researching ways to avoid drugs for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
Between them they investigated the vagus nerve. Vagal nerve stimulation was already in use for epilepsy. They gained approval to try it for arthritis.
More than 1,000 people volunteered to have a pacemaker in their chests attached to their vagus nerves in their throats however, only 20 people were needed and used to be part of the clinical trial. After two weeks of healing time, the pacemakers were turned on and adjusted.
Each participant swiped a magnet across their throats six times daily. This caused the implant to be activated, which would stimulate their vagus nerves for 30 seconds per swipe.
After several weeks, more than 50 percent experienced dramatic improvement. One-third of them found themselves in remission. For 16 out of 20 of them, also saw inflammation levels in their blood drop.
Nobody wanted their pacemaker taken out.
Some participants no longer need drugs for arthritis. Many are to all intents and purposes free of rheumatoid arthritis. As long as they are activating their pacemakers, that is.
The success for arthritis using the vagus nerve pacemaker may have opened the doors to possible treatment of other diseases like asthma, ME/CFS, diabetes, irritable bowel disease and obesity.
Sources:
Hacking The Nervous System
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/29/hacking-the-nervous-syste_n_746...
The Treatment of a Single Nerve has the Potential to Completely Change Modern Medicine
http://iheartintelligence.com/2015/07/22/treatment-of-a-single-nerve
Visit Jody's website at http://www.ncubator.ca and http://ncubator.ca/blogger
Reviewed July 27, 2015
by Michele Blacksberg RN