The Vagus Nerve as the secret Kundalini "wanderer" Snake N/om (original human culture) energy: OM and the vagus

Breath of Life: The Respiratory Vagal Stimulation Model of Contemplative Activity

The use of ‘OM’ chanting for meditation is well known.[5] Effective ‘OM’ chanting is associated with the experience of vibration sensation around the ears. It is expected that such a sensation is also transmitted through the auricular branch of the vagus nerve. We therefore hypothesized that like transcutaneous VNS, ‘OM’ chanting too produces limbic deactivation. Specifically, we predicted that ‘OM’ chanting would evoke similar neurohemodynamic correlates, deactivation of the limbic brain regions, amygdala, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, insula, orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortices and thalamus) as were found in the previous study.[4]

 Compared to rest condition the BOLD fMRI signals did not detect any significant brain activation during ‘OM’ chanting. However, significant deactivation was seen in the amygdala, anterior cingulate gyrus, hippocampus, insula, orbitofrontal cortex, parahippocampal gyrus and thalamus during ‘OM’ chanting [Table 1 and Figure 2]. The “ssss” task did not produce any significant activation/deactivation in any of these brain regions.