021 - The brain's inflammation thermostat
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- A new study identifies a key brain region for upregulating and downregulating inflammation. This site presents a new target for inflammatory and neuroinflammatory diseases. The paper is open-access and available here: www.nature.com...
Jarred Younger
Here is the online brain atlas (IMAIOS) I used in this talk: www.imaios.com/en/e-anatomy/brain/mri-brain - Jarred Younger
Thank you so much!
What about scanning a brain when a person is on bypass (which is continues), or people without a heart, like my ex?
I suffer from complex traumas, depression, adhd, chronic pain and some other crap. Vagus nerve exercises are incredibly beneficial to me and I always advice anyone to try multiple techniques, to find one that suits you personally.
The only "medicines" that have worked for me, by decreasing many of my symptoms (and it looks like it combats inflammation) so far, are the one's most doctors won't prescribe (and I've tried MANY categories). Are for example; proper cbd oil, psychedelics and some lesserknown research chemicals. I don't partake in any trips or take high doses anymore, and really prefer as small a (micro) dose I can get away with. Whenever I microdose lsd especially, I find most of my symptoms that could be linked to (neuro) inflammation subside, or even dissappear all together. Some relief is found when its interacting during usage, but other benefits seem to linger for days or longer.
I might be completely wrong on this, but to me it feels that it helps break down "broken" or wrongly learned pathways momentarily, so the brain is able to a better job at reconnecting stuff in a better way. Because everytime I tend to use some of these substances regularly for a while, I find positive and permanent changes, that stay, even after not touching the stuff for months at a time.
Thank you Jarred!😊
Thank you Jarred! Your labwork adds another dimension to treatments for my chronic pain patients. I use several modalities, including topical bilateral trigeminal ganglion blockade. This has routinely balanced the SNS and PNS to allow better brain blood flow. Please check my book “I’m STILL in PAIN - Now, What Can I Do?” for more details from my pain practice. I have only discovered you today, but will check your other videos over time and have subscribed. Sincerely, Cindy L. Morris, MD
Wow, I am SOOOO thankful your channel appeared in my YT suggested videos today!!! Hearing your calm, gentle voice sharing this info filled me with such peace and hope!! I’ve been dealing with fibromyalgia and ME/CFS for over 20 years, and now long COVID for the last 3 years, and I had given up hope of finding answers. You, dear sir, have given me hope again!! With gratitude from your newest subscriber.
Um hm. I know how you feel. See if you can find a functional neurologist to do some testing on you. Also, maybe biofrequency scans and testing might help too. A few woo woo Dr.s do them but Alternative Healers and practitioners do them, and they have frequency healing and frequency medicine. The medical side of things are very important though, and the other stuff is complementary and holistic.
Thank you so much from South Africa. I appreciate your dedication to understanding chronic pain. I am always looking for information to help with long covid symptoms. It is now over four years of fatigue and relapses. Your channel has helped so much. I finally managed to find a doctor who worked with LDN.
Thanks for letting me know. I hope the new access to LDN does what you need it to do. I haven't tested it specifically in Long-COVID yet, but I think it is reasonable to try given the positive preliminary results reported by other groups. Good luck! - Jarred Younger
Dr. Alan MacDonald (retired pathologist) found microscopic novel tapeworm larvae in all ten brains of MS patients he studied. This study was not peer reviewed, but is able for us to view online (with color slides of parasites). I wonder if this could be a cause of perivenular inflammation in MS? Thanks! Brain storming, that’s grand! As a caregiver for someone with MS I am interested in vagus nerve and NST studies as well as Brain health in general. Thanks!
Well that is a new one to me. I do only a little MS work so I'm not up on all the literature. I'll look into it. - Jarred Younger
As someone diagnosed with C-PTSD and CFS, I have believed for some time that interventions targeting the Vagus nerve could be effective to relieve my symptoms. I have suspected for some time, that the root problem is as you suggest at the outset of your video- faulty interpretation of signals by the brain indicating that there is a problem, when indeed there is none- with the resultant un-needed inflammatory response that wreaks havoc on the body. Your video is so exciting to me and I certainly hope you are able to connect with a process/technology that will allow you to migrate the study from animals to humans in the near future. Go science, go!
Thank you Dr Younger! Very interesting research.
Hope you feel better soon!
You are such an interesting scientist and i am so pleased to have found your channel…i was looking for videos on LDN and found you to be concise and tell things in such a way that is understandable. I also like to the very fact you are studying ways to help people with ME/FIBROMYALGIA…i have had ME for 35 years following a flu vaccine which gave me GUILLAINE BARRE SYNDROME….im 68 now so half of my life ive had a non life mostly in bed…not easy with 3 children. So sorry you were sick doing this video and hope you are better and thank you once again….invaluable…!!!
Anyone start a Dr. Younger fan club yet?
Got a green light and turn it on for at least an hour before going to sleep. Not sure if it’s helping much, but noticed when I was feeling rotten last week, turning off my phone and only having the green light helped.
☺ Let me know how the green light goes. I'm interested to hear if the results from that one study hold up on other people. - Jarred Younger
Don't push yourself too hard! If you're sick you've gotta find your happy place
Finally, a comment I understand. 🤦♀️
Thanks for the reminder! :-D - Jarred Younger
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the logical next step. The benefits of SGB, VNS for some people means that the vagus nerve is a good starting point. However, I think that low-dose transdermal nicotine patches work in part because they affect not only the vagus nerve, but also in the brain and throughout the gut and the rest of the body at a cellular and possibly mitochondrial level.
It would be interestesting to see if a combination with VNS and nicotine... would help speed up the process.
Can I ask where you learned about the nicotine and dosage of the patch? I have severe ME. I’ve tried so many things.
Interesting! - Jarred Younger
I hope you feel better soon! 🙏🏻
Thanks! - Jarred Younger
always putting out great videos
Norris lab working with EDS are doing some interesting studies on vagal nerve stimulation for EDS comorbidities. EDS and ME often walk hand in hand.
And brainstem issues are common in EDS.
@@kajnor1814I have heds fybromyalgia list my mum.to severe ms heds autism.so yes this is so true any more information on last comment brain stem issues do you have it pain my worst symptom seams the autism causes alot
@@kajnor1814brain stem issues do you mean CCI or the fybromyalgia
I mean brain stem issues, no specifications.@@Truerealism747
psilocybin can work miracles but can be unpredictable.
I have a tens unit. But do you have any vegus nerve stimulation devices that you’re fond of? There’s a bunch on the market these days and I’ve considered on of those more expensive neck ones to take the guess work out of the settings on the tens unit. Or to use in combo for different types of treatments. I won’t use your advice as a recommendation rather just devices to research more on my own. Thanks!
Would like to know the same.
I haven't settled on one yet, and my experience is limited. When I start the VNS study (probably in the next couple months), I will mention the unit we are using. We are working with Jamie Tyler, PhD and I'm not sure the device being used is commercialized yet. - Jarred Younger
this is absolutely compatible with what ive experienced with my remission from LSD that happened recently. it's continuing, i havent had to do more than 4 macrodoses, and ive averaged 10k steps a day for the past month. no sign of relapsing so far.
Really interesting video. I stumbled on this while searching for latest research for chronic fatigue, which I have suffered from since 2008. It's robbed me of my full life and noone seems to know the best way to support us, so often they don't. Off to subscribe, hope you're feeling better.
I love that you are seeking for answers & solutions, but I have a question, have you ever considered how diet affects the brain?
You mentioned the vagus nerve, which is connected to the gut, why not look at the gut itself & how it affects the brain?
Diet is a massive contributor for many neurological diseases. If you are open minded & feeling curious, then please look into the testimonials of the people who have healed their neurological & physical symptoms following a Therapeutic Ketogenic diet, & particularly the multitude of testimonies in regard to the healing effects of the Carnivore diet 🙏🏻
I totally identify with this. I had a lot of inflammation when I started on carnivore and my whole face changed as no longer puffy or brain fog and even stopped frequent falls I was experiencing. Weight improved and energy is amazing. Honestly feel like I’m in my 40’s and I’m 71.
Thanks for your comment.
@@vanessamay3689
Thank you for your response 🙏🏻
I’m loving the energy I have now too, I thought I was destined to be tired & miserable for the rest of my life. Now I’m carnivore, my brain fog is gone, joint pains are gone, bloating & IBS gone, arrhythmias resolved, anxiety & depression gone, & so many other odd things I thought were just “my normal” gone, gone, gone 🎉✨ I’m now 48 going on 30
How long have you been living Carnivore?
I believe that eliminating as many simple carbs and processed foods as possible to be crucial in reducing chronic inflammation.
@@vanessamay3689 What do you mean that you started on carnivore?
Jared, delighted you crossed my feed. Thankfully, you’re still working on pain, fibromyalgia. Your ability to translate for the public is awesome. I’ll keep following. Perhaps we could catch up on a podcast.
Thank you once again for your video. Hoping you improve soon Dr Younger. 💙🙏🏼💙
Thank you! I'm impatiently waiting for my voice to return, but otherwise good. :-) - Jarred Younger
I’m so excited to have found your channel!! Thank you for sharing science with us! I would love to hear if you get into research about depersonalization/derealization. It’s a surprisingly common experience, but some people suffer from it long term and not much is known about what can help. I’ve been suspecting for a long time that neuroinflammation may play a role in creating a kind of chronic anxiety loop that continuously triggers the symptoms, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about that before. Thank you again for your work.
Thank you Dr. Younger
Thank you so much for these presentations-we appreciate them so much and hope your illness passes quickly. About non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation, for those of us with pacemakers. These devices usually say not to use them with a pacemaker but when I contacted the manufacturer of my pacemaker they said that it should be fine if used on the right side, further from the pacemaker. Do you think using points on the right side would be as effective as the left?
Hello. I'm feeling better, but the voice problems are hanging on. I don't have enough experience with VNS to give advice, but my understanding is that the right and left VNS have similar desirable effects. The right is usually avoided because there is a greater chance of arrhythmia. But groups doing VNS studies will regularly switch to the right if there is a medical reason to do so. The primary goal would be creating distance between the two devices, so one of the ear devices may be best. In any case, I would want clearance and monitoring of my physician if doing that. - Jarred Younger
The influence of threat and fear upon the pain systems are very important.
For sure. There is heavy input from the amygdala and anterior cingulate on the experience of pain. - Jarred Younger
@@youngerlab Thanks for the mention of systems related to physical pain. Can't help but notice PTSD or C-PTSD appearing three times among the comments so far. Also ADHD... which overlaps significantly (hard to tell how much is due to unclear diagnosis vs comorbidity.) Anything relevant come to mind in this vein?
Oh this is great, I asked for this a few videos back. Thank you so much for picking this up! (:
I’ve got that same upper respiratory thing too here in CA. Family in TX also have it right now. Mild but annoying and also affected my voice a bit. Hope you get well soon.
Thanks! I think an enterovirus is making the rounds right now. - Jarred Younger
Not a scientist or a doctor, but recently diagnosed with MS, so the topic of brain inflammation is really interesting to me.
I know these are animal studies and not conclusive at all until finding a good way to both image and stimulate the NST, but still a great listen.
Thank you!
I just discovered your channel, I really like your style and the way you present the information. It’s nice to see the disclaimer at the beginning where you address conflicts of interest. So important but so often overlooked. I have long Covid and I deeply appreciate everyone that is working to find solutions for these kinds of chronic illnesses. It really makes life a living hell and can feel hopeless at times. Nice to see it being taken seriously and not swept under the rug as being psychosomatic (as Drs have been doing to CFS and Lyme patients for years). Thank you for your work and for taking the time to share information with us. 🙏🏼
I have very severe Me/Cfs and just tried VNS a couple of times. The thing is it helps me get calmer and feel better, but at the same time it seems to suck energy out of my body. The first time using the default settings I even crashed on it. I also have the same experience with medication that reduce the sympathetic outflow., they make me feel better, but I crash much easier. I don’t understand why that is, because I’m clearly in sympathetic overdrive, I guess what I wanted to ask, if the sympathetic overdrive could also have the function to protect the body? But I guess it’s too complex a topic to discuss here. I just wanted to leave my experience here regarding that topic and thank you for the great videos your doing, they help a lot in trying to understand what might be going on.
Ps..medulla stroke- - this is fascinating!
Since you’re already here on RUclips looking for answers, look into Therapeutic Ketogenics, & particularly the carnivore diet. There are a lot of good channels but to recommend a few, “No Carb Life”, “Anthony Chaffee MD”, “iFixHearts” (Dr Ovadia), “HomeSteadHow”, & also “Metabolic Mind” which focuses particularly on Ketogenic Therapies. There are a lot of people in your situation & much, much worse who have recovered through this dietary approach, their interviews are awe & hope inspiring,,, also, have a read of the testimonials in the comments section on these channels… 🙏🏻
Since the vagus nerve feeds into the NST, can you synthesize neurotransmitters using different nuclear magnetic resonance isotopes such as [2]H, [13]C, [15]N? The idea would be to get the vagus nerve to pick up the labeled neurotransmitters, transport them to the synapse, and then have them be picked up by the NST.
I don't know why this video was suggested for me. I have life long debilitating fatigue and have given up hope. Weird this channel didn't show up for me years ago. I will not check back to see if there is a response. I didn't watch the whole video, I have ADHD and again, doubt any information will help me. But it made me emotional, there are people, scientists, that are actually trying, at least. I'm am curious though, what tests would be run if I went to a neurologist. I can't seem to get anyone to believe that I was born with this, and it's not ME, or depression, for example. Rambling... this video triggered me.
Sorry to hear that. I believe you can be born with ME. Look up Robert Naviaux’s research on Autism and ME/CFS he has shown lots of overlaps, even ADHD is linked to autism.
Naviaux suggests many different triggers while in the womb or immediately after birth that put the cells in the brain into a ‘Cell Danger Response’ that means they go into a state very similar to hibernation. (Different degrees of severity for different people)
A way to know if your fatigue is ME or not is to remember if exercise has worsened your symptoms or not, There’s a key symptom in ME called ‘Post Exertional Malaise’ or ‘Post Exertional Symptom Exacerbation’
Does your fatigue worsen 24 to 48 hours after a period of exercise or exertion, i.e. doing too much. And does that fatigue last longer and feel worse for several days to several weeks after you did too much. If it does, then it’s highly possible you do have ME. If not, it may be something else.
Interestingly many ME patients have been misdiagnosed with ADHD, They have the same symptoms but the ADHD medications often don’t help. Thats because the neurons in the brain are in a state of hibernation too. Which causes brain fog and ADHD symptoms.
My advice is, since you’re already here on RUclips looking for answers, is to look into Therapeutic Ketogenics, & particularly the carnivore diet. There are a lot of good channels but to recommend a few, “No Carb Life”, “Anthony Chaffee MD”, “iFixHearts” (Dr Ovadia), “HomeSteadHow”, & also “Metabolic Mind” which focuses on Ketogenic Therapies. There are a lot of people in your situation & much, much worse who have recovered through this dietary approach, their interviews are awe & hope inspiring,,, and then there are all the testimonials in the comments section on these channels…
If you’re reading this, don’t give up, just look into this dietary approach & see what you see. Good luck & good health my friend 🙏🏻✨🤟🏻 I hope for you a much better future
Another great video 😊 I appreciate the way you make complex topics sound so straightforward. I've long known that the medulla is implicated in ME, and I suspect that's why dextromethorphan helps me a bit, but didn't know specifically which part of the medulla might be the issue. I'm glad you're thinking about how to image the NST 😊
Hi thanks. It is interesting to tie DXM to the NST discussion because of the antitussive action of DXM at the medulla. DXM definitely reduces inflammatory responses to experimental triggers (lipopolysaccharide). So I wouldn't be surprised if a major site of action for DXM is the NST. I bet the glutamatergic effects are happening in that region as well. I'll have to see if anyone has specifically looked at DXM effects specifically in the NST. - Jarred Younger
YT only just brought me your channel. Thank you for sharing your work with us here! Hope you feel better already.
Something you may find interesting to keep in mind, just in case you haven't come across it yet, is the April 2024 quantum biology study "Ultraviolet Superradiance from Mega-Networks of Tryptophan in Biological Architectures" by Babcock et al, which demonstrates quantum effects in microtubules in a lab setting.
I'm wondering if this is the same area of the brain that causes dizziness lack of coordination with hands feet, nausea? All hallmark symptoms for me. As a matter of fact one of the first symptoms I had even before I was no longer able to work was light headedness or dizziness. I would wake up and it would be profound getting out of bed than mostly go away be still I would be off. About 6 months later I was bedridden. 2 years later I moved out of my house into my back yard and got a measurable degree of health back. Wasn't bed ridden anymore. Could engage in limited activity and light chores. Still crash due to pem still have ups and downs brain fog digestive issues dizzyness oardination just not to the point of being bedridden 28 years later and 65 years old. Still deathly reactive to mold. And I could never peg gluten as a trigger for my symptoms but finally just came to the conclusion I can't take the chance so I am pretty strict about keeping that out of my diet.
My mother suffered similar symptoms but not "classic" orthostatic hypotension. She also had a very strong Vagal Response to changes in her body temperature but had excellent control of it otherwise until my father then brother died. Even then, she handled the stress and anxiety much better than most people without medication (at all). The controls started going haywire in the last 6 months of her life, creating migrating pain, as well as wildly erratic blood pressure and body temperature. Her first symptom was probably visual migraines which subsided in her 60s then a Parkinsonian intermittent tremor followed by visual perception issues and nerve impulse failure in her early 90s. She (and likely I) would be good case studies, especially since I'm losing control of my Vagal Responses. 🙄
Just a thought from someone not medically trained:
Instead of trying to hold physical/physiological structures like the NST still for imaging, is it possible to estimate the size, frequency, and duration of some of the more regular movements (e.g., heartbeat), and have the imaging device move (or interpret the image) in as similar a way as possible? Basically, is there a way to sync an imaging device to a patient's body in order to minimize the physiologic noise you refer to in your presentation?
Have you considered stimulation with infra-red light which, as you know, can actually penetrate several centimeters of bone? This light energy stimulation, and increase in the number of mitochondria might be a partial substitute for electrical stimulation. I have had very noticeable improvement to retinal AMD with medium intensity, short duration infrared light.
Thanks for this review. On the question you asked, you must know there has been a great deal of work done in the last ten years on motion compensation in general imaging and on bodily motion for medical/research imaging in the human context. A lot of that happens with focus on expensive MRI and PET, etc. systems, but then those are the kinds of machines capable of the kind of high-resolution (whether it is high enough for this case may be an open question) capture that would be most likely to suffer from poor motion correction. The key would be measuring the salient body characteristics of target subject before the imaging of the target organ/system begins, then using that data to reconstruct the images with whatever algorithm is currently the best for doing that compensation. I know from my nonspecialist browsing in this stuff that there have been many, many articles on this and related topics in the journals in recent years, especially in the PET context. Whether the machines to which you have access will allow the kind of customized setups some of these articles discuss, you would know better than the rest of us. Reading this stuff has generally left me feeling we are a few years away from the kind of progress that might be relevant to imaging for the chronically ill corner cases like me, but that for most things we have pretty good options. Yet, as I said, with so many recent papers, a review of the current literature might yield good news.
I wish I had more for you, but imaging isn't a subject I get to research often these days. Thank you for the animal-model link.
Thanks for the prescriptive. I think the neuroimaging field is good correcting for general head motion and can keep things locked down to about 1mm. The problem I see with the NST is it is smaller than the voxel size, and there is no obvious contrast delineating the NST and surrounding cells. We need some kind of tracer that can (safely) label the cells of the NST. Then I think the motion correction would be easy. - Jarred Younger
@@youngerlab I think your reservations are exactly the right ones, and that the safety issues on anything involving this and related parts of the nervous system override all the other considerations. It is extremely easy to do serious damage in the brain/stem and in the neck areas where we might try to gain access or influence by way of nerves or blood vessels. With vital connections all around the possible areas of manipulation (by whatever means), we need to be very sure we can and will hit our targets before we do anything.
I got off into a few rabbit holes after this video, including some stuff on stellate ganglion blocks, which have resurfaced in interventional-pain-management circles for possibly treating long Covid and ME/CFS (and a laundry list of other things) on the basis of the idea that numbing a nerve (or set of nerves) for a few minutes can prompt a "reboot" of the whole response pattern of the sympathetic nervous system's emergency immune signaling. The arguments are pretty thinly stretched on the evidence of just a few somewhat promising but small-scale studies. The approach carries with it enormous risk of hitting an artery or the spine with the needle, along with risks of respiratory interruption that can be fatal, and there are one or two other risks. The evidence of improvement in any way is pretty minimal, with lasting improvement being a small minority of the outcomes. Yet this treatment proposal is enjoying a wave of favor in certain quarters. I don't know, but this seems to me to be premature.
In the current case (meaning the material you reviewed from the well-done Nature paper), proceeding with caution about bringing these ideas to human patients is more than reasonable. Thanks for your reply.
I'm living with moderate ME and I've been doing tVNS for almost a year with the Truvaga device. I selected this device because it's the sister device to a FDA approved device that has shown success for migraines. In my mind, the setting is likely dialed in for that reason to truly activate the VN. I believe in combination with other therapies, it's helped move the needle for me.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and insights on this Dr Younger. It's really helpful.
And I am not surprised that the VN could be once again implicated in all of this. I have been using a tVNS for a number of years. Very interesting!
What about using pressure waves like the geologists use earthquakes to picture small structures along with MRI and FMRI?
Wow, great suggestion. And MRI is not dissimilar from seismic imaging... both perturbing the site and measuring response. Thinking of shock wave lithotripsy... not sure the brain is an area we want to be subjecting to pressure waves though!
Thank you for this video!!!
I kind of wonder about why invasive means of stimulating nerves is needed. I've had success with tibial nerve stimulation using TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) for bladder issues. The accepted clinical treatment is percutaneous (using a needle electrode), but the nerve gets stimulated either way. Then there are various Ayurvedic methods for vagal nerve stimulation - maybe figuring out the right type and dose is all that is needed.
Yes I agree that we don't want to do things invasively when we don't have to do so. Non-invasive techniques are less precise and are more likely to hit other targets not intended, but that is ok in many cases. - Jarred Younger
Sounds fascinating. My father did cancer research at UAB for about 35 years (his name was Raymond Hiramoto). One of his areas or research involved using a Classical Conditioning model to train the immune system (of mice) to respond to a conditioned stimulus. He died in 2002, so this research is decades old. Idk if there’s a way to use CC to discover the pathways that lead to inflammation in the brain. I’m a musician, not a scientist. Best wishes on your continuing research.
Can you suggest some of his papers? At FSU and can look through Google scholar.
This is so important. Thank you for working on it.
Where can I get a brain scan like this?
So interesting thank you. Are you in communication with Merogenomics? He is investigating vagal nerve stimulation. He has a great RUclips channel
Indeed!
That’s really fascinating, thanks for sharing. I hope you are feeling better now 😊
Just finding you. Wonderful content, thank you. Great to discover your lab.
Feel better! 🙏
Thanks for another informative video! Please take time to rest. I've found Dr Roger Seheult's videos on the Medcram channel to be very helpful on certain topics. I'm going to ask some questions, but I hope you rest instead of answer (I'd welcome the input of anyone reading). ~ Do you think ppl who have had conditions like ME/CFS, etc. long-term (decades) would show differences in the NST that could be detected on autopsy? ~ I've suspected the brain stem as playing a role in ME since my daughter had intractable vomiting and the vomiting center is in the brain stem in the area postrema & solitary nucleus. I was wondering is the NST is near them and Google says are these regions are all in the medulla oblongata. Do you think they are close enough that there is a functional relationship, and how much does proximity really matter anyway?
I think he’s excellent as well
Yes, in fact, the area postrema is the second region identified in the new paper. Both the AP and the NST are part of the vomiting reflex, so we are talking about the same structures. It makes sense that there is heavy overlap between vomiting and inflammatory regulation. The proximity isn't necessarily important, but the shared circuity is. If I were dealing with someone having uncontrolled, chronic vomiting of unknown origin, I would do a series of brainstem scans. In the case of an autopsy, I would look for an infarct or tumor in that region. Both of those could cause vomiting. - Jarred Younger
@@youngerlab Thanks for the reply - really interesting. My daughter was hospitalized at Duke for intractable vomiting and they refused to do any scans since they did not want to reinforce her/my 'sickness belief'. They also did not wait for her Celiac Ab test to come back (nor did they do any meaningful allergy testing) before starting her on 'treatment' for ARFID, which according to the DSM is a diagnosis of exclusion. I wish I had known these things back then (2019). Thank you so much for your work - you are truly helping people.
I was wondering if a 7T MRI would show the NST? This is most interesting. Thank you for all the work you are doing for us. Hope you feel better very soon.
Same but with a 11T MRI. A new one was build in Paris this year for research only.
And an even more powerful one is currently built in the Netherlands. 14 T. Hope they will use it for "our" issues.
@@tanguy3313 Yeah I want to get access to an 11T MRI. That is frog-levitating strength! Maybe the French team can do some brainstem-focused scans so we can see how it looks. - Jarred Younger
@@alicerowaan8748 Wow. You would have to take 30 minutes to slowly advance the patient scanning bed to keep them from vomiting. I got dizzy just reaching into a 7T. I'll get an update on what they are doing. - Jarred Younger
7T looks so much nicer than 3T. I think with the right sequence, that could be a winning approach. I have good colleagues a couple hours away with a new 7T to replace their older 7T. I can take a trip down there anytime and bring some participants! - Jarred Younger
Hi Dr. Younger. Question: If you do approach the Vagus Nerve Stimulation as a means to study this, would it involve PET scans, or MRI? I'm hoping to be involved in a study at some point (I keep listening for a study in which I'm liable to be useful). Due to hypoxia at birth, I have a tendency to randomly twitch or spasm at the most inconvenient moments, making at PET or MRI useless. This being said, my ME/CFS has been theorized to have been rooted in trauma. In addition to the classic ME/CFS symptoms (PEM, unrefreshed rest, etc), there has been a great deal of vagus nerve involvement. Lack of intestinal motility, high anxiety, brain fog, sudden idiopathic low blood pressure quickly righted for no apparent reason, etc. If I could be of use in a study that does not involve PET or MRI, but that would help in one of your studies, please keep me in mind. I would gladly participate. ~~ Amy Pope in Huntsville, AL
I suspect neonatal hypoxia might be a risk factor for ME. I also suspect intermittent HBOT (like the protocol used by Aviv Clinics, which actually mimics hypoxia) might be beneficial in such cases, but I would not try it outside of a clinical trial b/c it seems potentially quite risky. It's also really expensive - another reason not to try unless it is proven effective in a trial.
I'm sure there will be projects coming up that would work. Half of my projects are neuroimaging. The others are clinical trials and blood tests. I am also helping out with a VNS study for ME/CFS that would not require neuroimaging. I'll announce every new project here. - Jarred Younger
What if the radiological equipment was set up to reimage a central slice of the brainstem anatomy without moving the subject, and the 3D anatomical image was constructed using synthetic aperture from the natural breath and heartbeat motion generated in the subject? Image stabilization algorithms could estimate the motion of the subject through the sampling plane, and that would provide orientation of the different samples for synthetic aperture synthesis?
Is the main constraint on imaging such a small location resolution? Would 3T or (we can wish!) 7T MRIs make this more possible? I realize that these machines are expensive, rare, and hard to access - but I'm curious if the issue is access to equipment that already exists or if we really need substantially more advanced imaging technologies.
You're right. We have a brand new 3T. We can get that down to about 0.75mm (depending on the sequence). A 7T could probably get to around 0.3mm, which might be enough. I think the number one limitation is technical limitations. The second one is just not being creative enough with what we have. :-) - Jarred Younger
It’s interesting you talk about vagus nerve and nst. It looks like part of the vagus runs into cochlear and vestibular nuclei as well. Since a concussion it’s been weird that using my eyes heavily or getting upset causes ear ringing on the left. If stimulating the vagus helps (maybe) some structures nearby maybe it could help others or maybe re-train them.
Targeted ultrasound?
You might want to look into mast cell activation. 🙂👍🏻
Great information thank you and I hope that you better soon!😊
Would a video professional be able to help with imaging that moves around and make it still?
Has anybody found a specific test that can rule in or rule out ME/CFS? As you must certainly know many patients who believe they have this are reluctant to submit to typical primary care for a fishing expedition In fact I was astonished to find a comment on the NIH website patient information on page about how patients with this diagnosis face hostility from their doctors
Organize a protest at an AMA conference. The AMA protects outdated doctrine and hubris in medical practice. Make specific demands like objective diagnostic criteria for making and rejecting diagnoses and acknowledging medical gaslighting is a problem in their membership. Name key players in the AMA who can make this happen. Appeal to current medical students for support. Bring a lot of people. Make a scene. Invite reporters and social media influencers. Keep doing it at every conference.
There's a lot of talk of using AI to track things no human could track and make sense of what's going on in that data
Perhaps you could talk to a research team that has experience with AI and brain imaging and discuss tracking the NST or see if your colleagues can suggest anyone
Good point. The AI is already making its way into diagnostic imaging in the medical field. There are many possibilities for research. I was using "machine learning" 10+ years ago to predict diseases using brain scans, but the AI approach will be much more powerful. - Jarred Younger
Dr. Younger, are there one or two vagal nerve stimulators you’ve heard good things about?
Following this comment to see the answer.
Hi. I'm not far along in the VNS research to recommend a unit. There are clinicians with much more experience. If our first VNS study shows good results later this year, I will talk about the device we are using. - Jarred Younger
This is very interesting as I and a friend of mine BOTH have had pituitary tumors removed AND ME/CFS. I'm wondering if the surgery and radiation has damaged this area? I have heard many patients with pituitary tumors have ME/CFS as well
I would ask Dr. Amen about brain mapping technologies.
Would having a chiari formation resulting from a cerebellepiontine angular meningioma affect the NST?
Is it possible to find answers in the NST from a brain donated to a biobank? Not everything will be measurable, but maybe you can find differences with healthy controls. Glad to have seen this video and to realize that things are happening (even though not yet in my country), it helps to keep on hoping for better days.
What Vegas nerve stimulation would you recommend?
I’m also intrigued by the picture behind you….it reminds me of lord of the rings for some reason…???
Wasn't there a couple case studies from years ago where they did biopsys on the deceased people with me/cfs and Lyme where they found the brain stem contained bacteria that weren't in non-cfs people?
biopsies*
Oh yeah, that may have been the trigeminal nucleus in the medulla. But there has also been a scattering of N=1 reports that had abnormal findings in the brainstem. I'll have to look back at those. - Jarred Younger
Dr. Younger - if the imaging issue is that it moves, couldn’t you use motion video capture instead of still imaging?
Hello. Because of the location, perhaps the image could be taken from inside the mouth at the very back of the mouth??
I have years of on & off pain from chronic untreatable HPYLORI
I did vague nerve stimulation which caused me to break out in cold sores and now my M.E is severe .. I don’t know what to do
Anyway of understanding the chemical influences that affect the NST and modifying the inflammatory response? Any speculation on how the NST works?
That's what I would like to know. I will probably try a translocator protein scan on the medulla to see if there is microglia inflammation in that general region. My colleague is also getting some COX-1 and COX-2 radioligands working at my institution. That might show abnormal inflammation in the NST region. So, we have a few PET scans that could show something down there, but the resolution won't be good enough to isolate the NST specifically. In terms of monitoring the chemical processes in those regions, that can be done only in animals. - Jarred Younger
Have you tried DMX? I had one done and it showed where the vagus nerve was getting crimped
Here's a left field theory I've pondered some. My reaction to mosquito bites has dramatically reduced in recent years, I believe, because I don't focus on them as I once did. I'm busy and ignore them now and they rarely are noticeable within hours. Attitude or mind control??...
This is such a deeply seated brain tissue, perhaps unreachable by NIR bathing of light that supports complex 5 electron transport chain ATPase rotation speed? Any way to augment NIR there in animal models to get feeling for efficacy in human treatments? Increasing mitochondrial functionality could be a starting point, especially with just light, rather than complicating further with drugs?
Thank you Jarred. Can the vagus nerve get infected?
Good Question!....
My next question is, can the vagus nerve get injured?
AI could compensate largely for movement, allowing for video imaging.
Often when I have inflammation after certain chemical exposures, my C1 needs adjustment. There are times that my head will tilt to a side if I relax compensating muscles. The worst offenders are toxic heavy metals and then smoke from individuals burning garbage. Maybe looking at surrounding structures would provide information.
It’s interesting you experience that
In using exercise- if while lying on your back you do a controlled chin tuck sufficient to activate your core muscles - then lengthen the back of your neck like having a puppet string pulling on the top of the head you then extend your head as far back as it will go then breathe in and move your eyes up and back as though you were looking at the wall behind you…. Breathe out …breathe in and look down to your chest…breathe in …repeat Then relax
That tiny movement pulls on the “ peg” at the top of the spine and moves it gently
It would be interesting to perform this under MRI observation and see how close it is to this inflammation point
That is interesting. I don't know if that is peripheral, or centrally-triggered. I wonder if the clinician notes different muscle tone between the left and right side. - Jarred Younger
Ever since I learned of the vagus nerve, I’ve wondered if it’s possible that the vagus nerve itself is infected or damaged?
I developed moderate ME after a virulent virus in 2012. It was so severe I experienced a seizure and was hospitalised. I don’t know what testing they performed but a later visit to my GP only showed influenza.
herpes virus is quite common.
Would PET FDG image w/o too much movement? Stephen Cunnane work on mitochondrial fueling?
Hi. The problem with PET FDG (or really any other PET approach) is not really the movement, it's more the size of the voxels. They are typically 5mm, which is larger than the NST. I bet there are animal PET machines that can get smaller. Still, doing PET could show an abnormality in the region, even if it can't show it is coming specifically from the NST, so there is value in going that way. - Jarred Younger
Have you done any research including CRPS1? Any lessons learned? Any treatments or cures?
I think UCLA was doing a study in 2019 and 2020 to see (it might be earlier in the teens bc I've been sick a long time) where they were getting remission from CRIPS w ketamine, a prolia type med mixed with vitamin D and something else, if memory serves, and people experienced remission.
Its also entirely possible it was Stanford..I've had COVID 2times and its fuzzy since 2020.
If you can't go through it....go around it!
😆 - Jarred Younger
Retrograde axonal transport of a toxin, possibly like mis-folded a-synuclean, or a metal like PB?
I like it, but I don't think we are there yet with humans. I used to work close to Karl Deisseroth and was always keeping a close eye on when this type of technology was brought over humans. The progress in that area has been very slow - mostly due to concerns over medical risks. There are some possibilities more in the PB imaging you mentioned that I can look into, similar to how gadolinium is used for blood-brain barrier imaging. I'm also interested in using nonradioactive F19 to tag ligands and measure with a fluorine MRS coil. Thanks. - Jarred Younger
Did we know at what tissue temperature did SARS COV2 better replicate ?
Why ?
Because german virologist Christian Drosten suggest that SARS COV2 better replicate in different tissues If incubator temperature decrease to 34C -35C (at TWiV Nr 659 at min29)
I haven't seen the literature on optimal temperature for SARS-CoV-2 reproduction, other than the obvious suppression at 38F and higher. That is strange SARS-CoV-2 would be optimized at 34-35C given humans (and many mammals) don't get that cold. - Jarred Younger
@@youngerlab Christian Drosten suggest that nouse temperature decrease in winter to 34-35C
And surgical mask wearing maintain higher mucouseal respiratory temperature
@@youngerlab SARS-CoV-2 thought to have originated with bats... whose temp during torpor goes to 20 and in some cases even 10C
Eh, biofeedback?
Been used for decades, just not 'sexy' enough, and seems to put an emphasis on the patient working for their own health.
I have PAS
Rout? 😂
Thanks for all you do from Western Australia 🦘 😊
Re imaging the NST, is there an imager that can take many images per second (like a rapid fire strobe light or camera flash) at a reasonable resolution, then somehow average out the results using algorithms or AI?
Totally not my field but no problem is truly original - think of the poor physicists trying to imagine atoms, or biologists trying to look at individual proteins. Some inspiration may be found in other scientific fields.
Thanks! Techniques like that can help. The speed of the images is restricted by the physics of the imaging method. We send a radiofrequency pulse through the region and then measure the signal as the atoms relax and return that energy to be measured. Usually, one of the parameters is holding the minimum speed to about 2 seconds per image. The main problem we have is that, while we call it an image, it doesn't use light. It is more like yelling into a cave and listening for the echo. - Jarred Younger