Kevin J. Tracey

Um, that's a good point to, uh, tell you a bit more about him.

You can't read anything about the vagus nerve without seeing Kevin Tracey's name.

Uh, he is a neurosurgeon.

He's also president and CEO of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health, which is New York's largest medical provider.

We are not giving any medical advice here.

Yes.

Well, thank you to Kevin Tracey for chatting with us and, um, you know, obviously we think that more research is, is definitely needed, but it's all really fascinating stuff, so thank you.

Yes, thank you, Kevin.

And just you plug into your phone, you listen to music, and it's going to give you that five to 30 minute dose that you need on a daily basis.

Have you done any work looking at the effect on cytokine levels? Because that has, because of Kevin Tracy's work, really become the gold standard for saying, yes, I stimulated the vagus nerve because I can see the change in the immune

effects.

So that is something that we are conducting right now.

You know, the people at Cyberonics, I mean, I think of their, just the amazing things that they did with implantable technologies.

I mean, getting through the FDA with... epilepsy, the challenges that they've had getting through reimbursement for depression is really unfortunate because it is a remarkably good technology for depression.

And of course, the work by Kevin Tracy, I mean, and the people at the Feinstein Institute looking at the The immune reflex and the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway, that is really opened the door to understanding so much more than just what the vagus nerve does, but really how aging works.

Most of my focus right now is understanding how the neuroimmune axis sits at the core of aging, but Yeah, I listened to the field is great.

A lot of the time, it's the one taking the orders, and we're gonna explain that in a second.

So one of the most important discoveries in modern medicine, it was back around 2000, a scientist named Kevin Tracey and his team at the Feinstein Institute were doing what looked like just everyday, ordinary inflammatory research, and they stumbled onto something that's recognized and changed the whole field, and I'm sure many of you have heard of this.

They found the vagus nerve.

Now, the vagus nerve is a long, windy nerve that runs from your brain stem through your heart, lungs, gut.

This is a vagus nerve ear massage You can also learn to cough in an effective way, which is- If this sounds like any other overhyped wellness trend, there's actually a lot of science to unspool.

Here with us today is neurosurgeon Dr. Kevin Tracey, one of the pioneers of a field called bioelectronic medicine, techniques to stimulate the nervous system using electricity.

Back in the '90s, he was the first to discover that the vagus nerve regulates the immune system and inflammation.

He's been on that vagus train [chuckles] from the very first stop.

Dr. Kevin Tracey is president and CEO of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health.

Hey, Kevin.

Welcome to the show.

Kevin, thanks so much for being here today.