Hey, it's Flor Lichtenen and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today, turning our attention to a social media darling.

What happens in the Vegas nerve does not stay in the Vegas nerve.

It controls your heart rate, your lungs, your diaphragm, your breathing.

The Vegas nerve. It gets billed online as the gateway to nervous system nirvana. Your ticket to better rest,

relaxation and overall health. All you need to do is coddle it correctly, which according to

wellness TikTok can be done in a surprising number of ways.

If you stimulate the vagus nerve and you can do that by gargling some water.

This is a vagus nerve ear massage.

You can also learn to cough in an effective way.

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 Tracy, one of the pioneers of a field called bio-electronic 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

Vegas train from the very first stop. Dr. Kevin Tracy is president and CEO of the Feinstein

Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health. Hey, Kevin, welcome to the show. Thank you for

having me on, Flores. It's great to be here. Let's start with the 101 I need. What is the

vagus nerve? Where is it? How should I picture it? The vagus nerve, we call it the Vegas nerve. You

actually have two, starts in your brain at about the level of your ears. One on each side.

It travels down your neck, across your chest, and into your abdomen.

And all along the way, it sends off branches to organs that you don't think about all day long,

like your heart and your lungs and your pancreas and your spleen.

...