A Country Doctor Reads: Consider the Vagus Nerve, No Matter What Seems to be the Diagnosis | The Wall Street Journal

It’s all about inflammation, from cancer to Alzheimer’s disease and arthritis, colitis and psoriasis in between. And now we hear the brain controls inflammation via the vagus nerve.

A couple of years ago I wrote about how the vagus nerve regulates mood and emotions. Now The Wall Street Journal writes about how it controls our immune responses. I had a professor in medical school who used to say “if you know lupus, you know medicine”. Maybe at this point in time one might say “if you understand the vagus nerve, you understand medicine”.

According to an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal the other day, a decades old discovery that the brain regulates the immune system through the vagus nerve is promising possible new ways of treating what seems to be the root cause of many chronic diseases.

Electricity Is the New Medical Miracle

“Dr. Tracey’s break­through two decades ago was the dis­cov­ery that the brain also con­trols the im­mune sys­tem through the va­gus nerve. By us­ing elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion to hack into neural net­works, it’s pos­si­ble to reg­u­late the im­mune re­sponse and per­haps some­day cure in­flam­ma­tory con­di­tions such as mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis, lu­pus and even Alzheimer’s dis­ease.”

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/electricity-is-the-new-medical-miracle-crohn-vagus-nerve-biotech-startup-trial-remission-treatment-11658512502