[HN Gopher] The vagus nerve orchestrates the mind-body connection
___________________________________________________________________
The vagus nerve orchestrates the mind-body connection
Author : jandrewrogers
Score : 171 points
Date : 2024-08-30 15:29 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org)
| Nav_Panel wrote:
| I really wish these articles cited more primary sources. I would
| love (and prefer) to review the empirical work that led to the
| communicated understanding of these systems.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| I have extracted this (and other) nerves from cadavers, and this
| circuitous cranial nerve (XII?) is as beautiful and complex as
| the multibranch _plexus_ -es (e.g. _brachial_ ). So delicate.
|
| Human anatomy, at first glance, often seems wrongly-engineered.
| After you've worked inside dozens of people, you begin to realize
| that everybody is unique -- and nobody is "textbook" anatomy. Who
| knows what all this goop even does?!
|
| If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend this humbling
| human experience. My hope is that my own cadaver is ripped apart
| by somebody as crazy/appreciative as me =D
| nojs wrote:
| How does one get this chance?
| stephenitis wrote:
| I watched a fullautopsy in a theater high school at the
| Walter Reed National Military, followed by an open heart
| surgery. I'm sure there are videos of this. Beware it's a lot
| they pick apart the human body.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| Multiple options, including: attend medical school; become
| employed by an anatomy farm.
|
| As for "chance of being hacked apart," anybody can donate
| their cadaver to science -- most facilities require prior
| enrollment and will recover the corpse, nationwide.
|
| You might end up sold into scientific experimentation... if
| you're morbidly obese (e.g.) you won't be used for student
| anatomy (if you care).
| gojomo wrote:
| You may be able to find a local community college course that
| offers free/cheap observation or participation in human
| cadaver dissection.
|
| This 2022 LessWrong post mentions a $60 5-hour option at the
| Sf Bay Area's Merritt College (in Oakland):
|
| https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/5PBWgHiCiiJHjPRSn/what-
| it-s-...
| RoboTeddy wrote:
| > My hope is that my own cadaver is ripped apart by somebody as
| crazy/appreciative as me =D
|
| https://meded.ucsf.edu/willed-body-program :)
| ViktorRay wrote:
| It's interesting you mention
|
| "Nobody is textbook anatomy"
|
| I know you're exaggerating for poetic effect but this might
| actually be true in some parts of the human anatomy.
|
| For example the description of the anatomy of vessels and
| anastomoses around the knee...I have had a professor tell me
| that the standard anatomical descriptions for this might all
| essentially be fiction. Basically the variation in some of
| these vessels over there is so high that the standard
| anatomical textbook description might be wrong.
|
| That being said maybe the professor was wrong. I don't know.
| But it was an interesting thing to think about.
| devilbunny wrote:
| No, really: nobody has completely textbook anatomy.
|
| Think of it like those blended-face photos. Anatomy books
| describe that.
| cosignal wrote:
| Some people wonder why the use of 'AI' in pathology is not
| more effective, and this is part of the reason.
| breck wrote:
| > If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend this humbling
| human experience.
|
| Not as good as doing your own dissection, but a million times
| better than an anatomy book is visiting a plastination exhibit:
|
| https://breckyunits.com/ketoneMap.html
| catoc wrote:
| Nervus vagus is X - the tenth cranial nerve
| Sysreq2 wrote:
| This reminds me of a conversation I was having recently about
| genetically engineering humans. I think people are greatly
| underestimating the complexity of the human body and it's
| nature mechanisms of adaptation. Everyone is a little different
| - but that's okay because all the little feedback loops and
| receptor sites account for changes. Like a drug addict needing
| more and more to get their fix. There isn't just one variable
| we can adjust to really solve most problems. You have to look
| at the entire web of interconnected systems and modulate how
| each of them work together. We sort of take it all for granted
| since life is so abundant, but it's truly nothing short of
| miraculous.
| loceng wrote:
| My vagus nerves were constantly being compressed until roughly 4
| months ago, when I had bilateral Eagle's syndrome surgeries -
| Eagle's syndrome a hardening, calcification-ossification of
| ligaments that connect from the styloid process and wrap around
| the neck connecting to front of throat; I had played American
| football for all of high school and most likely the cause from
| reptitive injuries/trauma to the tissues.
|
| Well, this understanding, if true, could help explain why the
| severe-debilitating pain level I've had would very easily cause
| me to get completely lost in the pain - where I couldn't get my
| mind going, couldn't focus past the pain, would be lost and fully
| distracted by the pain if I didn't 1) keep my activity level as
| low as possible (even slight movement of my neck would strongly
| worsen the symptoms of Eagle's syndrome, particular to the right
| - a commonly described symptom that one side is much worse), and
| 2) if I had had any inflammatory foods during the prior 2-3 days
| or 5 days if dairy.
|
| Now my struggle is, now that my nervous system isn't so
| interfered with with my vagus nerves' signaling no longer being
| interfered with - my nervous system is working far stronger now,
| so I feel the remaining few areas of pain far more strongly - and
| along with that emotionally the experience is far harder as well,
| far more aggravating; and I arguably no longer get as easily lost
| in the pain anymore, but now that I am more often connected to my
| mind, the remaining more strongly experienced pain is more
| constantly disruptive - whereby the disconnect otherwise was
| arguably a sort of coping mechanism; being lost in pain is not
| fun, but at least then routine could act as a functonal crutch.
|
| The biggest problem now though is it is even more difficult to
| get my mind focused on a specific task that I need to get done,
| having had severe executive dysfunction that had slowly been
| improving over the years as I played whack-a-mole to knock out
| the next strongest sources of pain - but now trying to organize
| and get together what's needed to book next diagnostics for next
| likely needed treatments to get last 2-3 major-excruciating
| remaining pain sources has been so difficult now, the uphill
| battle has turned into a steep cliff; the biggest problem is I am
| in Canada, Ontario specifically, and the knowledge and
| competency-critical thinking here is absolutely abysmal - where
| I've had to spend likely now over $800,000 for medical treatments
| in the US over the last ~8 years, and now struggling to find
| competent dentists - made worse by a dentist 1+ year ago - lastly
| being bounced around I think to 5 different dentists now the past
| 3 months.
|
| My story is more complex than this however. My issues with pain
| only started after "successful" LASIK eye surgery ~12 years ago
| caused my nervous system to get overwhelmed - causing central
| sensitization - was the tipping point or the "final straw that
| broke the camel's back." Prior to LASIK my mind could handle
| suppressing whatever underlying pain the injuries and nerve
| compressions I had; so there is definitely a factor of
| compounding and arguably amplification (along with hyperalgesia,
| a hyperesensitivity to pain) between different the eyes and the
| rest of the body-brain.
|
| I'm at my wit's end, and as pain has localized, unmasking the
| remaining pain sources more strongly, it appears there's a
| possibility while LASIK may have been the impetus - it may have
| been the teeth damage-specific teeth pain but overall bite
| occlusion causing severe sensitization via disruption of my
| reflexes-autonomous nervous system, essentially TMJ-TMD but only
| problems runaway guarding-muscle spasming that's compressing
| nerves - and then perhaps TMJ-TMD guarding compounding with the
| Eagle's syndromes; and then perhaps also with the corneal damage
| that happens in 100% of LASIK surgeries, of which there is
| nothing more I can try to reduce that as a source of pain.
| evrimoztamur wrote:
| I have a story about as long in text but not in duration.
| Nonetheless, I was unaware of a neck injury for about four
| years, then I got an MRI. Orthopedist suggested seeing a brain
| surgeon as soon as possible, and luckily the one I found
| suggested immediately that surgery for my young age was no
| option.
|
| I ended up getting corrective soles and a mouth guard, and with
| the mouth guard specifically, I _immediately_ went from 100% to
| 30% pain, and still recovering.
|
| The nervous system and the interconnectedness of our bodies is
| impeccable. Throughout my recovery I learned so much about my
| own bodily systems. I recommend everybody, especially desk-
| jobbers, to see a qualified orthodontist for their chronic
| neck/shoulder/back pains. You will be surprised what you find
| out about the damage, and how fast recovery might come.
| devin wrote:
| Orthodontist or orthopedist?
| chucksmash wrote:
| It reads like a typo, but given their pain was ameliorated
| by using a mouth guard, they meant what they said:
| orthodontist.
| yunohn wrote:
| This is very interesting, could you detail the connection
| between insoles and mouth guards to your neck/brain injury?
| password4321 wrote:
| Thank you for sharing your story; I'm sorry you are suffering.
| I'll lead with this quote and ask that you please feel free to
| ignore the following links:
|
| 2020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24947498 How to deal
| with extreme physical pain
|
| > _I don 't want your advice on how to make the pain go away or
| to deal with it_
|
| --
|
| Over the years on HN there have been discussions mentioning the
| work of two pain specialists focused on the mind-body
| connection: John Sarno's "Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body
| Connection" (1991) or "The Mindbody Prescription" (1999) and
| more recently Bessel van der Kolk's "The Body Keeps the Score"
| (2015). I don't have enough personal experience to contribute
| any opinions on these resources, but I wanted to make sure you
| were able to review the recent discussions at these links,
| along with more anecdotes of the techniques working for many:
|
| Comments mentioning Sarno (useful for finding similar entire
| discussions):
| https://hn.algolia.com?query=%22sarno%22&sort=byDate&type=co...
|
| 2024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40744983#40746172
| Walking to combat back pain (Sarno)
|
| 2024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39324820 What is
| trauma? The author of "The Body Keeps the Score" explains
| [video] (Kolk)
|
| 2022 Alan Gordon's "The Way Out: A Revolutionary,
| Scientifically Proven Approach to Healing Chronic Pain" per
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38214915#38219120
|
| > _a more up to date book with actual science to back up what
| you described_
|
| 2017 Sarno documentary trailer:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JVDj2rEOas
|
| 2016 counterpoint (but see comments):
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/06/26/book-review-unlearn-yo...
|
| 2005 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16483114/ "Debunking myths
| about trauma and memory" per
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40705079#40717901
| computerdork wrote:
| My story is very similar. Have had tons of pain and muscle
| related problems for decades - played a ton of sports like you
| when i was a kid, and did a lot of physical risk-taking too
| (skateboarding, bmx-style biking taking them off jump-ramps...)
| and also had lots of injuries.
|
| On top of chronic pain, I had (and still have but is greatly
| reduced) muscle clenching on the left side of my body - for
| some reason my body on the left side is clenching up, with this
| constant pulling on my head, pulling down and to the left. I
| also have severe TMJ, again on the left, and constant headache,
| light sensitivity, difficulty focusing and fatigue. It was
| truly horrible - imagine going through life with an extremely
| strong pull on your head and body. Your posture is messed up so
| physically, you look like a wreck, and sitting is painful as is
| standing. Also, you are just fighting this pull every second of
| the day. It never ends and you constantly have to think about
| it and ways to reduce the pull and the pain.
|
| I worked with physical therapists and orthopedists for decades
| to try to figure out what was going on, but nothing worked. So
| about 8 years ago (I'm 50 now, so it was around my 42
| birthday), I finally realized that I needed to look beyond the
| obvious causes of these types of problems, and explore almost
| everything, really ramping up the number and types of doctors I
| was seeing. Saw many types of docs: pain specialists, TMJ docs,
| gastroenterologists, ENT's (I have throat tightening and
| stomach issues too), neurologists...
|
| Eventually, like you, found that many of my issues were from
| compressed nerves. And yeah, it's a struggle for you and the
| docs to find the right ones, but once you do, it makes a big
| difference. I'm not 100%, but I'd say I'm 60% there, and it's
| definitely changed my life, and is visible both physically and
| socially.
|
| Of course, every person's body and causes of health-problems is
| different, so what helped for me may not help for you, but
| seems like you're on the right path. Keep searching, and would
| suggest being scientific about the process (this really helped
| me). I may write about my experience one day, so if you have
| any questions, let me know. And best of luck
| adaptbrian wrote:
| Please don't take this the wrong way but I'm very curious if
| either of you have heavily modified your diet in an effort to
| remove part of the pain cycle? A low inflammatory diet might
| help from my own personal experience with diabolical pain.
| xyst wrote:
| Human body is very flawed. Damage to this nerve can result in
| systemic failure. When are we going to get an update? Evolution,
| pls fix!1
| moffkalast wrote:
| Maybe we can replace it with a CAN bus. Or PCI express.
|
| https://xkcd.com/644
| conradev wrote:
| My favorite bugs are the ones that are too low priority to fix,
| like this one:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex
|
| The exact pathophysiology is still unknown but it's a variation
| on "the nose nerves and the optic nerve are too close together"
| chucksmash wrote:
| The joy of explaining your sneezes every time you see a
| bright light during cold/flu/pandemic season.
|
| I'm surprised to see it affects 20+% of the population
| because I've never met anyone who knew what I was talking
| about when I said "sorry, light makes me sneeze"
| bl0b wrote:
| Ha! I have it too. Doesn't feel like 20% but we're out here
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Has anybody tried vagus nerve stimulation? I tried it but didn't
| get anywhere much.
| nprateem wrote:
| Some kinds of meditation stimulate it. I've tried those.
|
| Where did you hope to get?
| amelius wrote:
| Not GP, but there is
|
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-
| way/201...
|
| Not sure if this is a good idea though.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _The vagus nerve orchestrates the mind-body connection_
|
| if it does, then the vagus nerve orchestrates the _brain-body_
| connection.
|
| the mind-body problem, or if you prefer the mind-brain problem,
| remains unsolved. and apparently, mind-brain confusion persists
| as well.
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| After almost everything else failed I tried VNS for Restless Leg
| Syndrome. Didn't work either. Really had high hopes for it.
| ionwake wrote:
| Story of a friend . Working 7 day weeks , big deadline. Poop.
| Faint. wtf? Job ends. Years later never happens again.
|
| Working 7 days a week makes your vagus nerve sensitive and under
| stress can shut you down as a defence mechanism.
|
| Never knew this, have always advised friends to be very careful
| when under stress for long periods of time.
| poszlem wrote:
| Just a random "vagus nerve story". A while back, I started having
| weird heart flutters that turned out to be extra heartbeats
| (doctors call them PVCs and PACs). Sometimes I'd be fine for days
| or even weeks, but then they'd come back pretty bad. After a bit,
| I noticed these flutters were linked to what I ate, which seemed
| really strange. I couldn't figure out how my food could make my
| heart skip beats. I saw a bunch of heart doctors for almost a
| year before I found one who knew what was up. He told me I had
| something called "gastrocardiac syndrome." Apparently, not many
| heart doctors know about it. It's basically when acid reflux in
| your stomach messes with the vagus nerve. The doctor gave me some
| medicine to stop the acid (PPIs), and just like that, my weird
| heartbeats went away completely.
| BaculumMeumEst wrote:
| This has to be super common. My wife and I both are acutely
| aware of acid reflux causing flutters and other weirdness.
| During her pregnancy it got worse, and after a full cardiac
| workup her doctor's best guess was interaction w/ the vagus
| nerve.
| clarkrinker wrote:
| I was looking for research papers for the 9 non invasive vagus
| stimulators I get ads for on instagram.
|
| Anyone have success with these for anxiety/depression
| hi41 wrote:
| Art Of Living's course 1 Sudarshan Kriya offers breathing
| course which activates the vagus nerve. I have attended this
| course. It claims to reduce anxiety, depression and addiction.
| I have not practiced it regularly. Sorry to say that.
|
| Here is that article:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573542/
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_of_Living_Foundation
|
| I hope this helps. I wish you good luck on your journey to good
| mental health.
| pedalpete wrote:
| Though we have an understanding of what the Vagus nerve does, and
| I think this article misses that it is involved in both calming
| and stimulating the para-sympathic nervous system (someone
| correct me if I'm wrong), but the challenge with any of the
| "therapies" that apparently stimulate the vagus never is that we
| can't measure the vagus never directly, and are therefore making
| assumptions that this is the pathway these therapies are taking.
|
| I had built a "vagus nerve stimulation app" a while back which
| used vibration to enhance calm. I did some measurements comparing
| this vibrating stimulation to neurofeedback with a Muse device,
| and the results seemed positive, but because we couldn't say
| specifically which mechanism was being triggered, and that it
| wasn't more than just "listening to calm music", we didn't pursue
| it.
| reallyeli wrote:
| "Orchestrates?" Seems a little vague-us.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-09-01 23:00 UTC)