The vagus nerve is the longest and most complex of the 12 pairs of cranial nerves that emanate from the brain. It transmits information to or from the surface of the brain to tissues and organs elsewhere in the body. It plays critical role in controlling many functions of body and transforming that information into mental states like good mood or depression.
Many rituals in Sanatana dharma play vital role in maintaining vagus nerve stimulation. Even Yogasana and Surya Namaskar also help.
Here are old notes on same subject:
Intellectual Stress, Janeu(जनेऊ) and Vagus Nerve Stimulation
Now, this new research says that, it is this nerve that play active role in taking many food decisions. Recent research says that information passed from GUT to brain via vagus nerve, not only decide what to eat or how to behave but also location of food ate last!
It also raised concerns over popular short-cut surgeries to reduce obesity where they cut the connection between GUT and Brain by disarming vagus nerve!
Vagus nerve stimulation is a new fancy medical procedure. Those who are engaged in intellectually and mentally stressful activities, do need to learn vagus nerve control. And Janoi(जनेऊ) helps here, physically and mentally.
Research
‘Gut instinct’ may have been the GPS of human ancestors
Do bariatric treatments and surgeries for obesity adversely affect memory?
Ask anyone if they remember where they ate the juiciest burger, the sweetest cupcake or the smoothest bisque, and they probably can describe the location in great detail, down to the cross streets, the décor, and the table where they sat. A new USC study in Nature Communications gives a possible explanation for food’s prominence in memory.
The body’s longest nerve, the vagus nerve, is the autobahn between what scientists have referred to as the “two brains” — the one in your head and the other in your gastrointestinal tract. The nerve is key for telling you the tank is full and to put the fork down because it helps transmit biochemical signals from the stomach to the most primitive part of the brain, the brainstem.
But in this animal study, researchers may have found a greater purpose behind this complex circuitry involving the vagus nerve. This “gut-brain axis” may help you remember where you ate by directing signals to another part of the brain, the hippocampus, the memory center.
Following our stomach
The scientists believe that this gut instinct, this connection between spatial awareness and food, is likely a neurobiological mechanism that dates back ages to when the definition of fast food was a herd of deer running away from the nomadic hunters who tracked them.
Back then especially, it would be critical for the gut to work with the brain like a Waze or Google Maps navigation app, said Scott Kanoski, an assistant professor of biological sciences at USC Dornsife and corresponding author of the paper. Those wandering early humans could remember a site where they had found and collected food and return repeatedly for more.
“When animals find and eat a meal, for instance, the vagus nerve is activated and this global positioning system is engaged,” Kanoski said. “It would be advantageous for an animal to remember their external environment so that they could have food again.”
