BACKGROUND We hypothesize that left-sided low-level vagus nerve stimulation (LL-VNS) can suppress sympathetic outflow and reduce atrial tachyarrhythmias in ambulatory dogs. METHODS AND RESULTS We implanted a neurostimulator in 12 dogs to stimulate the left cervical vagus nerve and a radiotransmitter for continuous recording of left stellate ganglion nerve activity, vagal nerve activities, and...

The stimulation of the central vagus nerve in guinea pigs was applied to study the role of vagal afferent information in the control of breathing. The survival time after bilateral vagotomy was measured in unanesthetized animals, under Hexobarbital anesthesia, and in anesthetized subjects when the central stump of the vagus nerve was stimulated. There were no differences in survival time betwee...

The vagus nerve represents the main component of the parasympathetic nervous system, which oversees a vast array of crucial bodily functions, including control of mood, immune response, digestion, and heart rate. It establishes one of the connections between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract and sends information about the state of the inner organs to the brain via afferent fibers. In th...

Cervical vagus nerve stimulation is in a great variety of clinical situations indicated as form treatment. It textbook knowledge that at the cervical level contains many different fiber classes. Yet, recently, several reports have shown this also may contain an additional class potentially noradrenergic fibers, suggested to denote efferent sympathetic fibers. As such, nature and presence these ...

The effects of electrical stimulation of the vagus nerves have been studied in anaesthetized dogs, before and after bilateral interruption of the cardiac sympathetic nerves. During constant heart rates, maintained by right atrial pacing, vagus nerve stimulation caused small but significant reductions of myocardial contractility, but these were minor compared with the effects of other negative i...

The cholinergic nervous system attenuates the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and inhibits inflammatory processes. Hence, in animal models of intestinal inflammation, such as postoperative ileus and dextran sulfate sodium-induced colitis, vagus nerve stimulation ameliorates disease activity. On the other hand, in infectious models of microbial peritonitis, vagus nerve activation seemin...

Creativity is one of the most important cognitive skills in our complex and fast-changing world. Previous correlative evidence showed that gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is involved in divergent but not convergent thinking. In the current study, a placebo/sham-controlled, randomized between-group design was used to test a causal relation between vagus nerve and creativity. We employed transcuta...

The particular importance of the vagus nerve for the pathophysiology of peritonitis becomes more and more apparent. In this work we provide evidence for the vagal modulation of inflammation in the murine model of colon ascendens stent peritonitis (CASP). Vagotomy significantly increases mortality in polymicrobial sepsis. This effect is not accounted for by the dilatation of gastric volume follo...