Body of Research

Acute inflammation can turn chronic, as shown in studies such as reported by Harvard Medical School in a special report on Fighting Inflammation: How to stop the damage before it compromises your health. In fact, an exacerbated inflammatory response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is believed to be one of the major causes of the morbidity and mortality of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, inflammation that turns chronic can become a re...

The Psychological Health Center of Excellence of the Defense Health Agency in the Department of Defense has released a Psych Health Evidence Brief on the use of vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Although the 2021 brief falls short of recommending VNS for treatment of PTSD, it shows recognition of a treatment approach that is gaining rapid momentum even just since 2020.[1] In fact, transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) is treatment ap...

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a result of chronic stress that mobilizes  the autonomic nervous system, and may be reflected by chronic disinhibition of limbic structures. Mild traumatic brain injury commonly precedes PTSD in populations such as veterans, owing to the vulnerability of white matter in these networks. Such damage may affect response to treatment of PTSD. The authors evaluated transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation (tVNS or taVNS), a non-invasive, low-risk neuro-auricul...

Auricular stimulation has been applied for medical treatment for thousands of years, and became popularized on the developments of Dr. Paul Nogier, the “father” of auriculotherapy and auriculomedicine. In the present study, the relationship between the auricular acupuncture and the vagal regulation has been reviewed. It is shown that auricular acupuncture plays a role in vagal activity of autonomic functions of cardiovascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal systems. Mechanism studies sugge...