Fallon imagines implanting the stimulator in thousands more people as a tool to slow the progress of chronic disease.
“I see a future where not everyone, but lots of people, might end up with a device like this.”
That’s if he can prove it works. Despite more than 125 years of research, the nerve remains mysterious, its full power untapped.
The small electrodes that send signals to the nerve.
“We have a good handle on the fact [stimulators] work,” says Dr David Farmer, who studies vagus signalling at Monash University. “But we don’t know exactly what the mechanism is.”
Eastern spiritualists were some of the first vagus stimulators. The nerve can be triggered simply by slowing your breathing. Meditation, yoga and mindfulness are all efforts to send calming signals down the cable.
“I will always have hope that there is a treatment like this device that will give me a better quality of life,” says Ferola.Credit: Penny Stephens
In the 1880s, scientists discovered they could stimulate the nerve with electricity. Since then, approved treatments for epilepsy and depression have been developed largely through trial and error, says Andrew Butler, a vagus nerve researcher at the Florey Institute.
Scientists who work on the vagus hope that focusing now on inflammatory diseases, like Crohn’s or rheumatoid arthritis, will open up a broad new frontier.
Sara Ferola developed Crohn’s disease soon after having her son, Jaxon. She remembers “feeling very foggy and tired” and then suffering from severe panic attacks. She lost 15 kilograms and tried various medications without success before finding an antibody therapy that worked.
But the approved therapies come with long lists of side effects.
“I will always have hope that there is a treatment like this device that will give me a better quality of life,” she says.
Even if researchers can prove stimulation works for a broader range of conditions, there is the safety concern: the stimulators need to be implanted inside a patient’s body.
Risks from that procedure have dogged spinal cord stimulators, and led Australia’s drug regulator to deregister several products this year.
To help prove safety and effectiveness, the Bionics Institute has just won $4.8 million from a US foundation to develop the next generation of stimulator and take it to further clinical trials.
James Fallon is confident hurdles can be overcome. “Our body is an amazing thing. If you get it to do what it’s built to do, just a little better, that’s fantastic.”
The Examine newsletter explains and analyses science with a rigorous focus on the evidence. Sign up to get it each week.
Read the full article here
