Hi everybody, this is Scott Saad. Today I have, I think, for the first time on this show, a neurosurgeon. Kevin Tracy, how are you doing, sir?

Very well. Thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure. Okay, so let me just mention a few things about you. You are a neurosurgeon and inventor. By the way, my 13-year-old son today, who knows if he'll change his mind,

today he says that he wants to be a neurosurgeon. So maybe you are the hero that he needs to speak to.

So neurosurgeon and inventor, president and CEO of the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research,

you're a professor of neurosurgery and molecular

medicine at Hofstra University. I could not believe your Google Scholar metrics. What's going on,

man? I got to get my act together, 138,000 plus citations, which for those of you who don't know,

that's a pretty big number. Your latest book, The Great

Nerve, the new science of the Vegas nerve and how to harness its healing reflexes. So let's start

there. What is the Vegas nerve? Tell us all about it. Keep it at a layman's term. My audience

is very smart, but don't bore us with the specific neurotransmitters and so on.

Take it away.

The vagus nerve is actually a paired structure.

So you have two of them, like two thumbs and two kidneys.

You have one on each side.

It starts at the level of your, about the level of your ears in your brain and travels

down your neck, across your chest and abdomen.

Along the way, it's the longest of what's called cranial nerve, nerves originating

from your brainstem that go into your body.

And it's the longest of those of those 12 pairs.

But along the way, the vagus nerve is, it's like a information superhighway.

It's like a transatlantic cable connecting your body to your brain and your brain to your

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