As the vagal system with the vagus nerve in front is responsible for parasympathetic activity, neuromodulation via VNS can serve as targeted treatment in stressful and stress-associated conditions. In addition to alleviating stress, VNS has been shown to have a powerful anti-inflammatory effect (Tracey 2018)* and ability to enhance neuronal plasticity (Engineer et al 2011; Kilgard et al 2012).
References:
- Tracey, K. J. (2018). Neurons are the inflammatory problem. Cell 173, 1066–1068. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.05.005
- Engineer, N. D., Riley, J. R., Seale, J. D., Vrana, W. A., Shetake, H. A., Sudanagunta, S. P., et al. (2011). Reversing pathological neural activity using targeted plasticity. Nature 470, 101–106. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09656
- Kilgard, M. P. (2012). Harnessing plasticity to understand learning and treat disease. Trends Neurosci. 35, 715–722. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2012.09.002