So, the National Institute of Health (NIH) just awarded a grant of $6.7 million to the Feinstein Institute in Massachusetts to map the detailed wiring of the right and left vagus nerves.
They will be looking at 30 dead bodies in dissection in phase 1, then looking at the cross-section of the vagus nerves at various point, as if it is merely about wiring. They want to map which fascicles of the cross-section go to each organ or tissue supplied as if it is the Interstate Highway System.
Does the highway system adapt or “move”? Nope. But, the vagus nerves are ever-changing. The IL-6 receptors on the terminal bulbs are used as tentacles to locate foreign proteins and particles. They do not make permanent connections. It does move as required by what researchers call “biological intelligence” and we refer to as Innate Intelligence.
Want to map a dead body? Have at it. Try to extrapolate this to a living one? Epic failure is in your future.
What they hope to do is to find the concrete pathways to various organs so that they may “scream at it” using vagal nerve stimulators (VNS). To imagine that the vagus nerve is like a cowbell….and “we just need more cowbell”…is to miss the intellectuality of the RESPONSE. Yes, response….NOT “reflex”.
Consider this. A person suffering with an eating disorder has a HIGHER heart rate variability than a person not suffering in a like way. So, is “more incoherent cowbell” the answer? Chaotic signaling IS their problem, not their answer. How about realizing that we have intellectual communication through those neural pathways to control and coordinate, and not just white noise?
I would never begrudge anyone from trying to use VNS as an option for whatever incoordination they may be dealing with, but we need to be realistic in our realization of such outside-in limitations.
If the NIH can cancel that check and make it out to our profession we could do research that would melt their minds with $6.7 million, if we could get focus in our own research ranks to meet the need.
Keep smiling!