Publications

Recently developed methods were used to isolate and decode specific neural signals acquired from the surface of the vagus nerve in BALB/c wild type mice to identify those that respond robustly to hypoglycemia. Neural signals in the vagus nerve respond significantly to insulin-induced hypoglycemia and correlate with dropping blood glucose levels. A decoding algorithm was able to reconstruct blood glucose levels with high accuracy (median error 18.6 mg/dl). Hyperglycemia did not induce robust vagus nerve responses, and deletion of TRPV1 nociceptors attenuated the hypoglycemia-dependent vagus nerve signals. These results provide insight to the sensory vagal signaling that encodes hypoglycemic states and suggest a method to measure blood glucose levels by decoding nerve signals.