Ear to the Ground (news & ideas that integrate auricular)
The Big Idea in PMPs: A call for Neuro-auricular Pain Abatement
Pain can be challenging to treat, it is often a highly multivariate problem involving several stages of neural processing in multiple areas of involvement;[1] it inextricably involves both psychological and physiological aspects of being;[2] and, the feeling of pain is subjective, with high variability between individuals.[3,4]
For Pain Management Programs (PMPs), the auricular microsystem can help clinicians quickly access specific relevant neural pathways to regulate processing. In fact, l...
The Ear as a Polyvagal Portal: Neuro-auricular modulation in consideration of 3 developmental response systems
Portal to the wandering nerve:
Did you know that you can directly access neural pathways of the body via reflex zones on the outer ear to help clients/patients move toward healing with greater ease? Neuroscientists are using the microsystem of the outer ear to transcutaneously access the major nerve branches of the body, and research into neuro-auricular modulation has grown in depth and breadth in the past two decades.[1-8] More specifically, the therapeutic use of transcutaneous auricular v...
Neuro-auricular Modulation Training: Options for nursing and mental health professionals
Beyond NADA Protocol/AcuDetox
The challenge for nursing and mental health practitioners interested in the 5-point AcuDetox protocol often relates to the use of needles (which is regulated by many states and often limited to application by physicians or acupuncturists). Neuro-auricular modulation goes beyond acupuncture using tools within various scopes of practice. For example with a clinical-grade point-finder, a medical low-grade therapeutic laser, or through manual stimulation using ...
Current Directions in the Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation I – A Physiological Perspective
Vagus nerve stimulation, and specifically auricular vagus nerve stimulation aVNS, are showing importance in modulation of brain function, reflex loops, and brain chemistry (as seen in treatment of epilepsy, stroke, depression and other disorders)...
Neuromodulation of nociceptive processing (as seen in experimental and clinical evidence of pain treatment/managent)
Modulation of autonomic function
Modulation of metabolic syndrome
Modulation of cardiovascular and cardioprotective effects
Modu...
Spinal Cord Injury: Is the vagus nerve our neural connectome? Citation: (Edgerton, 2018)
With a schematic explaining the effects of vagus nerve and spinal cord stimulations on neural networks, Edgerton and Gad present a short review of the implications of the vagus nerve being able to mediate the time-dependent plasticity of an array of sensorimotor networks.
Considering and based on findings by Ganzer et al., they summarize four fundamental biological concepts regarding the vagus nerve.
“The vagus nerve mediates physiological systems (including sensorimotor and autonomic system...
