Anti-inflammatory Activities of Vagus Nerve Stimulation
The discovery by Kevin J. Tracey that vagus nerve stimulation inhibits inflammation by suppressing cytokine production has led to significant interest in the potential to use this approach for treating inflammatory diseases ranging from arthritis to colitis, ischemia, myocardial infaction, and congestive heart failure. Action potentials transmitted in the vagus nerve activate the efferent arm of the Inflammatory Reflex, the neural circuit that converges on the spleen to inhibit the production of TNF and other cytokines by macrophages there. This efferent arc is also known as the Cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway Because this strategy targets the release of TNF, it may be possible to use vagus nerve stimulation instead of anti-TNF antibodies (e.g., Remicade or Enbrel) to treat inflammation. SetPoint Medical, Inc. is an early-stage medical device company developing the experimental implantable neurostimulation devices for the treatment of inflammation.
A recent study published in Science (Sept 15, 2011 DOI : 10.1126/science.1209985) demonstrated the existence of acetylcholine-synthesizing T-cells in the spleen that respond to vagal stimulation, resulting in suppression of inflammatory response / TNF-alpha via macrophages.
Read more about this topic: Vagus Nerve Stimulation
Famous quotes containing the words activities, nerve and/or stimulation:
“When mundane, lowly activities are at stake, too much insight is detrimental—far-sightedness errs in immediate concerns.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“our nerve filaments twitch with its presence
day and night,
nothing we say has not the husky phlegm of it in the saying,
nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness,
the deep intelligence living at peace would have.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“The lore of our fathers is a fabric of sentences. In our hands it develops and changes, through more or less arbitrary and deliberate revisions and additions of our own, more or less directly occasioned by the continuing stimulation of our sense organs. It is a pale gray lore, black with fact and white with convention. But I have found no substantial reasons for concluding that there are any quite black threads in it, or any white ones.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)