A research team led by UC San Diego has, for the first time, shown that a wearable, non-invasive device can measure activity in human cervical nerves in clinical settings.
The device records what the team calls Autonomic Neurography (ANG), neural activity from the human vagus and carotid sinus nerves as well as other autonomic nerves found in the skin and muscle of the neck. The vagus nerve is a "superhighway" of the involuntary nervous system, with tendrils extending from the base of the skull through the torso and abdomen to influence digestion, heart rate and the immune system. The vagus nerve plays a pivotal role in the body's inflammatory response to injury or infection, and has been a focus for research into deadly conditions like sepsis, a leading cause of emergency room deaths affecting at least 1.7 million adults in the U.S. each year according to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and post-traumatic stress disorder, which affects about 3.5% of the population according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
To offer medical professionals a real-time, clinically proven tool for detecting levels of activity in the involuntary nervous system, an early warning sign of a body under stress, the researchers designed a flexible, adhesive-integrated electrode array (as reported in a 2022 Scientific Reports paper). The current study, published July 29, 2024 in Nature Communications Biology, used this approach with the aim of detecting deep neural activity in a simulated clinical hyperinflammatory model.
We are encouraged by our results. The device is poised to provide an early diagnostic marker of pathogen infection, or inflammation from a pathological process."
Lerman is the founder of InflammaSense Inc., the company that licenses the device's technology. "Based on the study results, we are now deploying the device at the intensive care units of the Jacobs Medical Center at UC San Diego Health. The device will detect early involuntary neural signaling indicative of impending sepsis."
Real-time in the emergency room
To replace surgically implanted microelectrodes to monitor or activate the vagus nerve, the new device leverages a powerful technique called "magnetoneurography" to more accurately detect cervical nerve firing non-invasively in real-time. The device detects the magnetic fields arising from activity in the vagus and carotid sinus nerves, which "pulse" to warn the involuntary nervous system of a threat.
