The vagus nerve's link to the immune system was discovered by accident more than 20 years ago. Northwell's Kevin Tracey and a team of researchers gave rats an experimental drug meant to prevent ...

Medicare will cover the cost of renting a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) unit for chronic pain or postoperative pain (pain experienced after surgery). In some cases, Medicare ...

Transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (TVNS) improved sleep quality significantly in a small, sham-controlled trial, substantially expanding a growing body of evidence supporting its ...

Next, Tracey's team learned how to stimulate the vagus nerve in a way that activates the anti-inflammation reflex. That allowed SetPoint Medical to develop an implantable stimulation device.

Tracey co-founded SetPoint Medical, a company that hopes to market a vagus nerve stimulation system for autoimmune diseases. It’s still not clear whether vagus nerve stimulation will be as effective ...

The results suggest that vagus nerve stimulation could help at least some of the 1.5 million people in the U.S. with rheumatoid arthritis. And Tracey says the benefits may extend to other ...