Multimedia Gallery
Fabricating tiny electrodes to study vagus nerve
Graduate student Tiffanie Markus uses a microscope to fabricate tiny electrodes used to painlessly stimulate the vagus nerve in the brains of rats.
More about this image
Robert Jensen and Douglas Smith, behavioral neuroscientists and psychology professors from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, are conducting research into the functions of the vagus nerve. Research conducted by Jensen and Smith, along with their students, has shown that electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve can improve people's memory and learning. They've also shown that such stimulation can help lab rats recover much more quickly from brain injury, and they hope eventually, humans as well.
The National Science Foundation awarded Jensen and Smith a grant to continue their work on the effects on the brain when the vagus nerve is stimulated.
Credit: University Photo Communications, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
Images and other media in the National Science Foundation Multimedia Gallery are available for use in print and electronic material by NSF employees, members of the media, university staff, teachers and the general public. All media in the gallery are intended for personal, educational and nonprofit/non-commercial use only.
Images credited to the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, are in the public domain. The images were created by employees of the United States Government as part of their official duties or prepared by contractors as "works for hire" for NSF. You may freely use NSF-credited images and, at your discretion, credit NSF with a "Courtesy: National Science Foundation" notation.
Additional information about general usage can be found in Conditions.
Also Available:
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (2 MB)
Use your mouse to right-click (Mac users may need to Ctrl-click) the link above and choose the option that will save the file or target to your computer.