INTRODUCTION Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) exerts beneficial anti-inflammatory effects in various animal models of inflammation, including collagen-induced arthritis, and is implicated in representing a novel therapy for rheumatoid arthritis. However, evidence of anti-inflammatory effects of VNS in humans is very scarce. Transvenous VNS (tVNS) is a newly developed and less invasive method to st...

Abst rac t Objective: This paper reviews the current knowledge of somatic treatment in psychiatry, with a focus on treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders. Method: A computerized search of the literature was conducted on Medline using the words “electroconvulsive therapy”, “transcranial magnetic stimulation”, “vagus nerve stimulation”, “deep brain stimulation”, and “magnetic seizure therapy”....

Kilohertz electrical stimulation (KES) has been shown to induce repeatable and reversible nerve conduction block in animal models. In this study, we characterized the ability of KES stimuli to selectively block specific components of stimulated nerve activity using in vivo preparations of the rat sciatic and vagus nerves. KES stimuli in the frequency range of 5-70 kHz and amplitudes of 0.1-3.0 ...

ABOUT THIS POLICY: AmeriHealth Caritas Louisiana has developed clinical policies to assist with making coverage determinations. AmeriHealth Caritas Louisiana’s clinical policies are based on guidelines from established industry sources, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), state regulatory agencies, the American Medical Association (AMA), medical specialty professional so...

An autonomic imbalance, i.e., increased sympathetic tone and/or decreased parasympathetic tone is a critical characteristic of heart failure, which is associated with progressive ventricular remodeling, ventricular arrhythmia generation and disease progression. Increasing cardiac parasympathetic tone by vagus nerve stimulation has been shown to significantly improve heart failure symptoms, hemo...

Removal of the seizure focus, either by resection or laser thermal ablation, has a high chance to result in freedom well-selected patients with focal drug-resistant epilepsy. Vagus nerve stimulation and deep brain are palliative approaches, which aim reduce number severity epileptic seizures. In older there seems be an overall reluctance respect all epilepsy surgery procedures. this context, “o...

1620 JEM Vol. 203, No. 7, 2006 When confronted with potentially lethal bacterial sepsis, the brain tells the spleen to shut down the production of inflammatory cytokines, according to Huston and colleagues on page 1623. This may help explain why splenectomy renders people more prone to the immunological overreaction of septic shock when infected with certain types of bacteria. When the brain de...

A set of equations is described which permit prediction of the time course of heart rate in a dog anesthetized with pentobarbital from the time course of frequency of stimuli applied to the distal cut ends of vagus and sympathetic efferent nerves to the heart. These equations, although based on assumptions as to the physiological mechanisms involved, were only tested for their ability to descri...

BACKGROUND Chronic heart failure (HF) is the main complication of various organic heart diseases. An imbalance of the autonomic nervous system has close associations with arrhythmia, ventricular remodeling, and sudden death upon HF. This study investigated whether unilateral vagus nerve stimulation could increase vagal activity, improve autonomic nerve distribution, and cardiac function in a HF...

INTRODUCTION Lafora body disease (LBD) is a rare autosomal recessive disorder characterized by progression to inexorable dementia and frequent occipital seizures, in addition to myoclonus and generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCSs). It belongs to the group of progressive myoclonus epilepsies (PMEs), rare inherited neurodegenerative diseases with great clinical and genetic differences, as well...