I appreciate the title. But I'm going to be reluctant to run electricity into my brain.

when doctors told these patients they could remove the implant, many of them replied, "No, leave it in. It makes me feel good."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminal_Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction)

I've had a vasovagal episode two times and they were terrifying. The first one I had no clue what was happening and thought I was about to die. The second I knew what was happening and still thought I was about to die.

My favorite soothing YouTube doctor did a review of one of these devices, in the context of people looking at them as a possible treatment for long covid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi7kPT30ydA

I used to go vasovagal over needles, but life these days involves so many needles one learns to roll with it. My vagus did a real star turn when they stuck a laparoscopic camera up my nose and down my throat to watch my vocal folds flap around in real time.

Anyway sign me up for the implant. It sounds a lot better than ECT, and even with the ghastly side effects people still opt for that as the only thing that works.

I wonder if the vagus nerve accounts for some of the connection between gut health and alzheimers.

Great post title.

6. Possible, but it's known that enteric nervous system function is OK even after vagus nerve disruption, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12909562/ . The video in 4 is informative and interesting, thanks!

My laptop version of Safari is refusing connections to Unfogged on security grounds, fyi. Firefox behaving normally.

Should I watch my language?

I had the same problem as 9 earlier this week, but then it went away.

Speaking of nerves, I now have pain that shoots from my hip to my foot. I think it might be sciatica.

The post title, which is great, sent me on an etymology side quest for Las Vegas:

From Spanish Vega, from vega, from Old Spanish vayca, from Old Basque *bai-ko ("river plain, water meadow")

Basque roots of course being appropriate to Nevada.

3. I had one of those this summer sitting outside at a tapas restaurant and apparently everyone around me thought I was going to die, while I really just wanted to put my head down and let it pass... Meanwhile, the ER doc wouldn't shut up about my partner's incredible presence of thought to take a pulse while waiting on the ambulance. A pulse! He's apparently a damned hero for taking a pulse. Eyeroll emoji...

|| Unrelated, Rory got married this week. (Her spouse is a geologist, so I think I'll dub them Toph...) It was a lovely, intimate event limited to parents, siblings, and the officiant whom both brides dated in high school and who played cupid when he figured out they were into each other -- all sharing one house for three days. UNG was lovely and fully dressed. His wife and I were besties for the duration of the festivities. |>

2. That line made me think: "Like a vibrator for the brain!"

14.2: Congratulations! The part about the officiant and especially UNG made it sound like the happy ending of a romantic comedy.

Or like the best cover up of a failed attempt at a threesome.

Congratulations.

refusing connections to Unfogged on security grounds

If your browser (or an extension) tries to force a secure https connection, it will prevent you from loading Unfogged, because we don't have a security certificate for the site and still run on http. (Someday I'll set that up, but not anytime soon.) You can usually just remove the s from https and get in as usual. (You can also reset HSTS in your browser, but that's more involved.)

Congrats, Di!

8: 6. Possible, but it's known that enteric nervous system function is OK even after vagus nerve disruption

Thanks for the cite. Part of why I mused about the connection was because of a dinner at a conference where a researcher in my field (FAR from neurology) had published something on Alzheimers after they had done a deep dive and found a paradox or integration (not sure which) that had been overlooked.

Anyway, this person started spewing info at me when they learned that my mother is suffering from lewy body dementia. They mentioned at one point that people who have had a key nerve from the stomach to the brain severed do not get alzheimers. Have not been able to find any citation for this and haven't bothered to email the researcher. But, interesting if true...

||
Bret Devereux is especially good this week.
|>

That is interesting! I admit I never thought that "bread and circuses" meant "frivolous stuff for the proles" - bread is important and providing circuses was an essential part of your job as an aedile, which was part of the cursus honorum- but I didn't know that the context was "now they can only *wish* for bread and circuses (rather than claiming them by right as voters).

Now I want circus peanuts.

We won't even have peanuts for another millenium.

Mazel tov, Di! That sounds lovely.