dan062
Senior Member
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I was having a look at the vagus nerve, and the ANS in general, last night.
For those that don't know, it's the tenth cranial nerve which acts as a conduit between the brain (it terminates in the brain-stem) and the immune system (it ends in the colon, host to 80% of that).
As it's the main plumbing between our neurological and immunological centers it's received a lot of attention in CFS research.
Looking at the various plexi (branches off the vagus nerve) and what symptoms those would correspond to, I can see how researchers are thinking that it's pretty key to CFS/ME whatever its involvement in the disease (direct infection, as Van Elzakker is postulating, or merely carrying inflammation from the gut to the brain as others think, etc).
It explains, for me, just about every symptom we commonly encounter bar one: leg weakness.
Is there a connection between a part of the PNS (most obviously, the sciatic nerve, and its offshoots) and one of the branches of the ANS around about where it provides provides autonomic innervation to the bladder (I believe the nerve I'm thinking of is the pudendal nerve)? If so, perhaps vagal dysfunction would simply carry on through that and down the nervous system via a direct connection.
Per the diagram below, the vagus nerve ends in the colon so it definitely doesn't directly provide innervation (and therefore cause symptoms) for any organs beyond that level in the body.
Or perhaps it's a central problem: would inflammation in the brain-stem rebound in the basal ganglia, which it is strongly inter-connected with and is situated relatively close by?
Diagram
[Tagging @Jonathan Edwards again]
For those that don't know, it's the tenth cranial nerve which acts as a conduit between the brain (it terminates in the brain-stem) and the immune system (it ends in the colon, host to 80% of that).
As it's the main plumbing between our neurological and immunological centers it's received a lot of attention in CFS research.
Looking at the various plexi (branches off the vagus nerve) and what symptoms those would correspond to, I can see how researchers are thinking that it's pretty key to CFS/ME whatever its involvement in the disease (direct infection, as Van Elzakker is postulating, or merely carrying inflammation from the gut to the brain as others think, etc).
It explains, for me, just about every symptom we commonly encounter bar one: leg weakness.
Is there a connection between a part of the PNS (most obviously, the sciatic nerve, and its offshoots) and one of the branches of the ANS around about where it provides provides autonomic innervation to the bladder (I believe the nerve I'm thinking of is the pudendal nerve)? If so, perhaps vagal dysfunction would simply carry on through that and down the nervous system via a direct connection.
Per the diagram below, the vagus nerve ends in the colon so it definitely doesn't directly provide innervation (and therefore cause symptoms) for any organs beyond that level in the body.
Or perhaps it's a central problem: would inflammation in the brain-stem rebound in the basal ganglia, which it is strongly inter-connected with and is situated relatively close by?
Diagram
[Tagging @Jonathan Edwards again]
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