Communication between the body and the nervous system is called interoception and it allows the brain to sense internal states, such as hunger, pain, or heart rate. The vagus nerve is an important ...

Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to marshal bodily functions, including aspects of mind such as mood, pleasure and fear. It is late at ...

We’re celebrating 180 years of Scientific American. Explore our legacy of discovery and look ahead to the future. Billions of nerve cells send signals coursing through our bodies, serving as conduits ...

The vagus nerve is a vine of nerve fibers with roots in nearly every organ and shoots in the brain. It helps us detect a racing heart, rising blood pressure, stomachache, discomfort, an overzealous ...

A recent study in an animal model provides direct evidence for the role of the vagus nerve in gut microbiome-brain communication, addressing a critical gap in the field. While the vagus nerve has long ...

Dopamine—a neurotransmitter responsible for influencing motivation, pleasure, mood and learning in the brain—has experienced a bit of fame in recent years, acting as a sort of buzzword to describe a ...

Researchers have found that a cancer outside the brain makes electrical connections with the nervous system to fuel cancer growth and aid its spread. Researchers have discovered that stomach cancers ...