Vagal Nerve Stimulator for Epilepsy

Your vagus nerves are involved in modifying numerous functions of your body, including your heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, and digestion. You have a right vagus nerve and a left vagus nerve, but a VNS device can only be placed on the left side because the right side controls your heart rate.

Vagal nerve stimulation with a VNS device is believed to decrease seizures through the vagus nerve’s interaction with the brain, but the exact mechanism through which it reduces seizures is still not completely clear.

Alterations in electrical activity, blood flow, or neurotransmitters resulting from the stimulation have all been suggested as possible explanations for the decrease in seizures among people with epilepsy who have VNS implants.

The vagus nerve has both excitatory and inhibitory actions on the brain, and it is likely that the vagal nerve’s inhibitory actions could be responsible for decreasing the seizures.