In an attempt to control relentless pain, medicine has tried many approaches from distraction to opioids, all of which have had some success but many drawbacks.
But now medicine is focusing on nerve treatment, specifically the long, tangled vagus nerve. This nerve serves many organs in the body, stretching and branching out from the cranium through the heart and lungs and into the abdomen.
Scientists are stimulating the vagus nerve with electrical impulses in an attempt to treat migraines, arthritis, and strokes.
The National Institutes of Health has funded more than $20 million to research projects over the next six years that look at the correlation between neural nerve activity and pain.
Vagus nerve stimulation, or VNS, is already being used to treat epilepsy, profound depression, and even obesity. But the treatments require surgery.
A new hand-held VNS device is being used in Europe for treatment of migraines and is currently under review for use in the U.S. Potential uses being studied now are nerve stimulation in the neck to reduce rheumatoid-arthritis inflammation, cluster headaches, and tinnitus
According to the journal Stroke, VNS is being tested on stroke patients to help in relearning movement.
The technology could even be used in children with autism to help them learn social cues.
