Department of Neurology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
Commun Biol. 2024 Nov 19;7(1):1536. doi: 10.1038/s42003-024-07222-1.
Neuromodulation by vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) provides therapeutic benefits in multiple medical conditions, including epilepsy and clinical depression, but underlying mechanisms of action are not well understood. Cervical vagus nerve biopsies were procured from transplant organ donors for high resolution light microscopy (LM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to map the human fascicular and sub-fascicular organization. Cervical vagal segments show laterality with right sided dominance in fascicle numbers and cross-sectional areas as well as sexual dimorphism with female dominance in fascicle numbers. The novel and unprecedented detection of numerous small fascicles by high resolution LM and TEM expand the known fascicle size range and morphological diversity of the human vagus nerve. Ground truth TEM quantification of all myelinated and unmyelinated axons within individual nerve fascicles show marked sub-fascicular heterogeneity of nerve fiber numbers, size, and myelination. A heuristic action potential interpreter (HAPI) tool predicts VNS-evoked compound nerve action potentials (CNAPs) generated by myelinated and unmyelinated nerve fibers and validates functional dissimilarity between fascicles. Our findings of laterality, sexual dimorphism, and an expanded range of fascicle size heterogeneity provide mechanistic insights into the varied therapeutic responses and off-target effects to VNS and may guide new refinement strategies for neuromodulation.
迷走神经刺激(VNS)的神经调节在多种医学病症中提供了治疗益处,包括癫痫和临床抑郁症,但作用机制尚不清楚。为了对人类束状和亚束状结构进行定位,从移植器官供体中获取了颈迷走神经活检标本,用于高分辨率光学显微镜(LM)和透射电子显微镜(TEM)检查。颈迷走神经节段显示出偏侧性,右侧在束数和横截面积上占优势,以及在束数上女性占优势的性别二态性。高分辨率 LM 和 TEM 的新颖和前所未有的发现,扩展了已知的人类迷走神经束大小范围和形态多样性。对单个神经束内所有有髓和无髓轴突的 TEM 定量显示,神经纤维数量、大小和髓鞘化的亚束状异质性显著。启发式动作电位解释器(HAPI)工具预测了由有髓和无髓神经纤维产生的 VNS 诱发的复合神经动作电位(CNAPs),并验证了束之间的功能差异。我们发现的偏侧性、性别二态性和束大小异质性范围的扩大,为 VNS 的各种治疗反应和非靶向效应提供了机制见解,并可能为神经调节的新细化策略提供指导。
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