The Longevity Formula

Reboot Your Brain: Vagus and Trigeminal Nerve Therapies for Next-Level TBI Recovery

• Dr. Brandon Crawford • Episode 36

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In this special episode of The Longevity Formula Podcast, Dr. Brandon Crawford and Dr. Ryan Cedermark deliver a talk at the Team Luke Hope for Minds conference, focusing on groundbreaking alternative therapies for pediatric brain injuries. The discussion covers the significance of the vagus and trigeminal nerves in brain healing and recovery, addressing why conventional treatments may fall short. They delve into innovative therapies such as vagus nerve stimulation, laser therapy, and vibration techniques, which not only manage symptoms but address root causes to promote long-lasting results.

The role of faith and community in the healing process is highlighted, followed by an immersive prayer led by Dr. Crawford. Concluding the talk, Dr. Cedermark shares scientific insights and real-world examples, emphasizing the potential of these therapies in transforming lives plagued by neurological challenges.

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Voice Over: Welcome to the longevity formula with Dr. Brandon Crawford. Let's explore the new era of wellness. 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the longevity formula podcast, where we explore a new era. of wellness through the pillars of faith, light, movement, mindset, nutrition, and science. I'm your host, Dr. Brandon Crawford, and today's episode is a special one.

Um, I'm going to be bringing you an exclusive talk from the Pediatric Brain Injury Conference for Team Luke. Um, that's Team Luke Hope for Minds. They're a non profit organization that helps the, uh, that helps people that have suffered brain injury. from pediatric brain injuries, right? So what we did is, um, I really dove into some fascinating and powerful roles of the vagus nerve, but also the trigeminal nerve in healing and recovery.

In this episode, we're going to tackle some of the most pressing questions many people face when dealing with brain injuries. Uh, things like why do conventional treatments often fall short when it comes to full recovery? Um, I know many people reach out and they want help because they say that they've reached a plateau, right?

And so Um, those are some of the questions that I really want to uncover here Um, also how can stimulating the vagus nerve and the trigeminal nerve offer a new path to? For brain healing, these are two very, very powerful things that need to be done. Not only are they powerful, but they're extremely safe.

Um, what role do these nerves play in reducing inflammation, restoring neurological function, and helping the brain and body communicate more effectively? We'll also discuss, um, how advanced therapies like vagus nerve stimulus, laser therapy and even vibration techniques are helping patients recover faster by targeting the body's natural healing pathways, particularly, uh, again, those dealing with the vagus nerve and not just the vagus nerve, but we're going to talk about the vagal system because it's not just one nerve, uh, and the trigeminal, trigeminal nerve and same thing.

It's not just the trigeminal nervous, the trigeminal. system. And that's a big concept that I want everyone to really understand. Um, these therapies don't just manage symptoms. They address through cause of dysfunction and truly promote real, long lasting, sustainable results. Uh, if you're looking for alternative solutions for brain injury recovery, chronic pain or neurological challenges, this episode is packed with insights that could help guide your healing journey.

So thanks for joining us and let's get started. You know, there's, there's no one on the planet, I'm getting choked up just thinking about it, that could do this, and I hate that it was you that's doing this, but there's no one else that could do this. I'm sorry it was you, but thank you.

What I want to do first is I just want to open this up in prayer. Um, but before I do that, I've had God lay something on my heart. I just want to share that with you guys. I've had the benefit to, to work with people from all over the world. Thank you. And they're all in various types of situations that are all similar to you guys.

And they have consistently told me something. They say, I'm mad at God. Why did this happen to me? If he loves me, if he loves my child, why did this happen? And here's what I'm going to tell you. I don't know. I don't have the answer. But here's what God wanted me to tell you, is that he loves you. He loves you.

And the Bible tells us this. The Bible tells us. That God says, come all who are weary, all who are heavy laden, and all who are broken. Does that speak to anyone in this room? Raise your hand if you're weary. Raise your hand if you're heavy laden or broken. He says, come. He doesn't say, I love you if I, he doesn't say, I love you when he says, I love you.

Come to me and I will give you peace and I will give you rest. So come.

And before we pray, I'll tell you this. Hell trembles whenever a group of obedient disciples of Christ pray.

So let's come together today and let's make hell tremble.

God, I thank you for today. I thank you for this time together, God. This is so important for this community. This is so important for us to come together and love on one another, to hug on one another, and to share our stories, our triumphs, our struggles. God, I just pray that we can all feel your grace. We can all feel your mercy.

We can all feel your love this weekend, God. God, I thank you for the people here sharing their hearts and sharing their knowledge, God. But God, I just want to proclaim, God, that it is not the methods, it is not the modalities, it is not the procedures that heal. God, I just want to proclaim that it is you.

You are where healing comes from and that we can rest in that. We can take peace in that. God, help us find comfort in the struggles. Help us find comfort in our weakness. God, just help bolster us up. Give us strength, God. Give us healing. Give us peace. Lord, for those that are angry, for those that are not speaking to you, God, I just pray that this stirs their heart.

God, I pray that this stirs their heart, that they just come to you and that they just say, God, I'm angry. That's it. Just open their hearts. Just open their eyes. So that they know that you love them.

God, I just pray that this is a phenomenal weekend. I pray that we can all love on one another. And God, we love you. And in Jesus name I pray. Amen. So I have the privilege to introduce Dr. Ryan Sedermark. Not only is Ryan a good friend of mine, but he is a phenomenal person. He is probably the nicest guy on the face of the planet.

That's for one thing. He has dual licensure. He's a chiropractor, but he's also a nurse practitioner. He has advanced training in functional neurology. Um, he, he enjoys the multidisciplinary approach. Um, he's worked in multiple settings. Um, he's a researcher. He's been in academia. He's, uh, he's just a phenomenal guy.

Um, he's actually leading care in our new Atlanta office, which just recently opened. Um, so we're here together. Uh, they put us in a back room. I don't know why they did that. Uh, I guess we're a little rowdy. Maybe it's because I asked for a margarita machine and, uh, the church said no. So, they, uh, they stuck us back in the corner.

But it's M100, way back there, so after this, come talk to us. Um, but I'm gonna give it away to Ryan. Thank you so much. I 

Dr. Ryan Cedermark: have to make sure I watch the time because I can ramble. Um, but thank you so much, my name is Ryan, and this is my first time being here in person. I've done the, I've done a lecture for Team Luke, I believe, Uh, during the pandemic virtually, um, so I'm, this is already one of my, my favorite places to be and, uh, I'm just, I'm grateful to be here.

So thank you for having me. What I'm going to talk about today, uh, in about 25 minutes is something that I'm very passionate about and that I feel is truly at the forefront of neurorehabilitation. Um, I still truly feel that some of the stuff I'm going to talk about. isn't really where it's going to be in the next few years because it's just such a new modality.

Uh, and not a lot of people are doing it. So, I just wanted to present this to just promote the importance of, of how healing our body can be when it's given the appropriate types of stimulation. vagus nerve. And if you asked me about the vagus nerve while I was in school, or maybe just like five years ago, my whole answer for what the vagus nerve did was it helped you poop and sleep.

Um, and that's all I knew about it. And that's pretty much all I wanted to know about it, because that's all we needed to know to pass our boards. But, is everyone familiar, or have you heard about the vagus nerve? I'm sure you've heard about it in multiple settings, um, on multiple streaming platforms, TikTok, Instagram, um, but the vagus nerve is a very powerful healing nerve that's in our system, and it lives between our brain and the rest of our body, and it's a huge highway of communication that can help our body heal if it's provided the appropriate stimulation.

So, we're gonna do a history lesson in about one minute about the vagus nerve, and we're I'm just gonna talk a little bit about what it does besides help you poop and sleep, even though those are two very vital and important things. I'm going to talk about the vagus nerve and how it helps regulate our heart rate.

We're going to talk about inflammation and how if you stimulate the vagus nerve, it can reduce inflammation in the body. We're going to talk about the gut brain axis in traumatic brain injury regarding vagus nerve and vagus nerve therapy. Uh, a little bit about motor rehab. Um, I found a very cool study about this.

And then just a couple of short clinical apps. And then Dr. Crawford's going to take it over with some more in depth stuff. So, grab your coffee. Because we're going into the research. No, I'm just kidding. Don't be too bad. Um, so, my introduction to vagus nerve and vagus nerve stimulation. Um, has anyone ever heard of vagus nerve stimulation?

Or vagus nerve stimulators? Yes. Uh, my first introduction was working in the hospital. I was working on a step down neurosurgery floor as a nurse, um, while I was getting my nurse practitioner degree, and our back wing had a seizure monitoring wing. So a lot of our patients were doing vagus nerve stimulator trials.

Um, and that's a major, you know, it's a major surgery. It's a long time in the hospital. But I understood how important that could be for patients. Um, because so many families were talking about how amazing it helped them and how much it was able to help reduce the seizures in their loved one or, or within themselves.

So, what the research really showed, and the reason I wanted to show you this is, it's a very fair, it's very fairly new. Um, 1988 wasn't too long ago. Actually, that's as old as my little brother, which is weird. Um, 1988 wasn't that long ago, and that's when they first started trialing vagus nerve stimulators for, uh, medically resistant patients that had seizures.

And what they found was that when the vagus nerve was stimulated, It would significantly reduce seizure activity in the patient. So that tells me is that, hey, if you stimulate the vagus nerve, you can have a better brain. Because a better brain can control unwanted movements, unwanted episodes like seizures.

And then, another such, you know, interesting thing to me was in 2011, they found with over 3, 321 patients, that significant reduction of 50 percent when they reviewed all the literature. So a lot of times in research what you'll look at and read is just a small pilot study. They were able to grab 10 people, or you'll see in a second mice or rats.

But this is a huge, huge study that showed stimulate the vagus nerve, reduce seizures, better quality of life. And no medication. But my question was, and always has been, even when I was working in the hospital, uh, How can this be done without surgery because with surgery there's complications and we saw it in the hospital The risk for infection becomes very high the risk for failure device becomes very high the risk for Unwanted episodes because if the vagus nerve it's kind of like a double edged sword so if the vagus nerve is seen simulated well, you'll have better healing, better brain, better function.

But if it's too well, then it can actually shut down your system. So it can actually cause fainting episodes and things like that. So how could we figure out a way or what are people doing in, in the clinics, in the research to provide this same type of simulation but not do surgery? And what the research led me to was Hey, you know, the vagus nerve has lots of areas all over our body, um, that it stimulates.

And there's ways to actually stimulate the vagus nerve and provide good vagal nerve therapy without surgery. And it sounds crazy, but one of the hot spots is the, is actually the ear. Anyone ever heard that before? So, there's big branches of the vagus nerve, and one branch that, um, innervates a large part of our ear, talks directly to the vagus nerve.

So what they started doing in the research is, they started stimulating with electrical currents the area of the ear that talks to the vagus nerve and talks to the brain and body. And what they found was that they were getting similar results. And they weren't having all these side effects, the risk for infection, et cetera, et cetera.

So the two big areas of neurostimulation that we can have an impact on without looking into surgery or anything like that to see if we can make a positive change to the nervous system are the ear and the neck and some other places. So that's pretty cool. Um, I thought that was really, really interesting.

And when I found that out, then I wanted to dive a little bit more into, well, what do we need to use to stimulate it, right? Are we talking about, like, a super duper fancy, like, ten million dollar machine? Or, you know, could this just be, uh, some light wind blowing on the ear? I didn't know. So I started looking in, more into the research.

Uh, and I found out some cool studies. So, the vagus nerve does way more than just pooping and sleeping. It basically impacts our entire body and there's a term and you probably heard it in, you know, on social media and stuff called vagal tone. Basically when we talk about vagal tone, it tells us how healthy your vagus nerve is functioning and how optimal your nervous system is functioning.

So the higher your vagal tone is. The more healthy you are. Um, and that's basically the whole gist behind Vagus Nerve is better vagus nerve function, better overall body and health. Because it does so much more. And I won't read all of those to you, but it helps with tons of things. It helps with blood flow to the brain, blood flow to the gut, communication between the brain and the gut, and the gut and the brain.

So it's really, really cool. And just to show you, I just wanted to pull up a couple of research articles. This is a, I, I dove into during COVID, um, I had nothing to do really, um, with a lot of my time. So I dove more into learning about stress and the impact of stress on the brain. And, of course, vagus nerve stuff started popping up because people that have a healthier functioning vagus nerve were actually more stress resilient and their brain was working better.

So, this is a paper I wanted to show everybody because if you look, Over here, they're using transcutaneous vagus nerve therapy, and then it just goes crazy. And you don't have to know all this and all the little abbreviations, but when I saw this picture, I was kind of blown away because just that little simulation, and they were using an electrical impulse on the ear, had profound impacts.

on very important areas of the brain, like the frontal cortex, uh, areas within the brain stem, areas that are responsible for regulating emotion, sleep, memory. So I just thought that was super cool. And, um, what they, what the research goes on to talk about is the more that the vagus nerve is stimulated, the more stress resilient someone is, and the more that they're able to receive stressful input, but then not have it impact them in a negative way.

The vagus nerve is also a very, very important nerve for regulating inflammation in our system. Uh, I personally believe that we're all a little bit inflamed, and a little bit of inflammation is okay, but when inflammation goes unregulated or unchecked, out of control, it can cause a lot of deleterious harm to our body and to our brain.

Especially in a brain injury. If there is a brain injury, our brain loses the capacity to help regulate the immune system, which will bring up more inflammation and more issues. So, what this paper talked about was actually the theory of depression isn't necessarily a neuropsychiatric disorder.

Depression is due to inflammation that's unregulated in the brain, which I thought was cool. My cousin's a psychiatrist and he thought this was crazy, but now he's like totally on board with this. Um, because you can't really argue with what they're finding in the research. And what they found was that when the vagus nerve is stimulated, Inflammation goes down and depression scores go down.

People start to feel better. They're able to use their brains better and their brain's working better. So, again, same thing. In this particular, uh, paper, they were just stimulating the ear with electrical impulses. This next one talks about HRV. I'm not going to go into super detail here, but what they were using was a small little pen on the outside of the ear and they were helping to regulate heart rate variability.

Just a quick note on heart rate variability. The higher it is, the healthier we are, and the more, uh, functioning, or the better functioning, our vagus nerve is. The lower our HRV is, or our ability to adapt with our heart rate, the less healthy we are, according to the research. So, what vagus nerve therapy does is it actually improves our heart rate variability, which means that It basically makes our nervous system better.

I thought that was really cool. Okay, this one I actually remember. I was driving to work, and I was reading, which I shouldn't have been, but I was on like this long highway. I had to go cover a clinic that was like an hour away. And I was super bored. And I was like, okay. So I just typed in, or I spoke something into Google, and this paper popped up.

And this was one of my favorite papers. Because the point I want to get across is it's not about like the specific diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. Because what they found was in this paper, if you stimulate the ear, you actually help patients with their rheumatoid symptoms. And also their blood markers that they were diagnosed with for rheumatoid.

So it basically reduced all those inflammatory markers. But the reason I got so pumped about this was, This is me. They were doing the same thing on the ear, but they weren't using the electrical impulse currents, they were actually using vibration. And, if anyone's ever had like a TENS unit turned up too high, that'll kind of zap you and shock you.

The same can happen to the ear. Um, some of the ear clips that they make for vagus nerve stimulation, I'm not a huge fan of, because they're a little bit noxious, they don't feel great, and for me, when I think of vagus nerve therapy, I think of like, chill vibes, you know, like, hey man, we're like, chillin out on the beach, everything should be like, super nice and calm, but then you're getting like, shocked in the ear.

So I read this and I was like, dude, vagus nerve therapy, but with vibration. So another sensory input into the brain, a little bit different from an electrical shock, but they're still getting really, really profound findings in the research. How cool is that? And of course, at that time, um, are you guys familiar with, uh, the Resimax, the vibration tool?

I was using that a lot. We were using a lot of vibration in the clinic. So, but like, in chiropractic, you're not using like little vibration devices. You're using those like whole body massagers. So I'm like chasing people around with my whole body massager. And they're like, you know, trying to vibrate their ear.

But that, that was the one paper that got me really excited because I thought to myself, cause my, what I love to do, I love working with kids. And like, No matter what you do, no matter how silly you are, or what TV show's on, sometimes they're like, Heck no dude, do not touch me with that electrical current.

Um, but with the vibration, they're totally cool with it. They might still be a little bit weirded out at first, but it's such a nice stimulation for the kiddos. So, Vibration, Vagus Nerve Therapy, I want to make sure I'm not going too far over, okay. This was another paper that I just thought was so, so cool.

Um, and I had a patient, uh, she actually had a brain injury, and by the time she had seen me, she had done functional medicine, she had been to her gastroenterologist, and her diagnosis was that she just couldn't tolerate food. I don't, I don't even think she had a diagnosis. I honestly don't even know if people asked her about her head injury.

Um, so we started talking, and the more I learned about her history, um, a large microwave, while she was at work, fell off a shelf, hit her on the side of the head, and then, like, two months later, she couldn't tolerate food at all. So, for me, um, What made sense to me, because at this time I kind of had a good understanding of the vagus nerve, and how it worked, and how it helped heal the body, and how it wasn't just for pooping and sleeping, um, what it told me was, hey, if there's a head injury, there could also be a gut injury.

There's a direct link, right? But I just didn't know what it was. So this was a paper from 2009, um, and these are in mouse models, but basically what they found Was that, in a mouse with a brain injury, very, very shortly after a brain injury, within six hours, There's disruption of gut integrity. Um, besides vagus nerve and vagus nerve health, something that keeps our bodies extremely healthy are our barrier systems.

And there's four big barrier systems. We have our skin, we have our lungs, but then we have a blood brain barrier to not let bad things into the brain area, and we have a gut barrier. When those two things become disrupted, that's when inflammation can go out of check, we can get really sick, and we can have a whole host of symptoms.

So, um, the reason I wanted to show you this was that a healthy brain had healthy gut lining, and an unhealthy brain had unhealthy gut lining. The way I equate this, if you've never heard of, like, the barrier systems, or the gut, uh, barrier and the brain barrier, basically, you're sitting on a nice, porch in the backyard, cool breeze, it's screened in, chilling, nice, having a nice drink, hanging out with friends.

Then someone comes up and cuts a hole in the screen door, and there's like mosquito alley outside, just a bananas amount of mosquitoes. Now they can come in to your porch, into the screen, through the screen door, and you can't enjoy yourself as much on that porch, because that barrier between the outside and your porch has been disrupted.

Does that make sense? So there's a bunch of mosquitoes getting in on that disrupted gut lining, and that can happen very, very shortly after a brain injury. When I saw that, though, my question was, well, did these guys do any follow up? Like, okay, we know that a head injury can cause a gut injury, but my focus and interest was in vagus nerve therapy.

If you simulate the vagus nerve, can you make a change to that? This is a paper in between that just shows when the gut is injured, the brain can become, become injured. And then you can have this bad, bad positive feedback loop that becomes disrupted and inflammation happens in the gut. It happens in the brain and you can't kind of turn that off.

There's no pause button there. But there is. So, that same research group, I'm going to skip over this one. That same research group got back together and what they did was before the brain injury, they stimulated the mice or rats, I can't remember what they were, they stimulated their vagus nerve. And then they looked to see how healthy the gut was after stimulation of the vagus nerve and brain injury.

And what they found was that the mice with higher vagal tone had, um, they, they were able to keep the healthiness within their gut lining, so they didn't have a disruption in their gut barrier. So that was really cool because they kind of did it backwards, they simulated the vagus nerve first and then the mice had the head injury.

But what that told me was, if you stimulate the vagus nerve, you can promote proper healing within the gut and within the brain, and you can shut down all that inflammation. Uh, so they also, they took samples of the gut lining, but they also looked at inflammatory markers, and they found that those were totally cool during the entire exam on the vagus nerve mice.

Super cool. Um, you guys still with me? All right. I know I'm rolling because Dr. Crawford's got a ton of good stuff to go, go through, but this same guy also didn't just keep himself down in the guts. He went up to the brain and what he found was that vagus nerve stimulation not only helps with gut lining and gut inflammation because of that brain gut axis, but it also helps the screen door to our brain.

It helps keep all the bad things out of our brain and improves. Blood brain barrier, integrity, and health. So, I was just, you know, cause for me, the whole time I'm reading these, I'm like, wow, so like, vibration on the ear can do all that? There's no way. Um, but, you can't really argue this, and then when you start to apply this stuff into the clinic with the patients and the kiddos, you make all these amazing changes.

You're like, that actually worked. That's, that's pretty amazing. Just to backtrack, the, the young girl that had the concussion that inspired me to go figure out what the, what in the world I was going to do with her for therapy, uh, we did. Uh, we spent a week doing vagus nerve therapy. She, after like, uh, I think it, After, like, the fourth day, she was eating foods again, which she hadn't eaten in months.

Um, she was basically just consuming an elemental diet, liquid form. Uh, and then, you know, after about a month she was on a full, healthy diet, back to eating. Everything got better. Her health got better. Um, her and her husband were trying to get pregnant. She ended up getting pregnant. Has a cute little kiddo now.

So, just, you know, those stories to me, they just, they sit and they, they never leave me. And I, I just think, wow, you know. She'd been everywhere and it was, it wasn't that simple, but it was as simple as just making that vagus nerve just speak better and using the body's own healing properties and you know, it was, it was just, that was probably one of the coolest things.

So anyways, this is just more jibber jabber on the blood brain barrier integrity. But the reason I wanted to show you this paper is because there's so much research on this that's coming out now, but it's still so new. And, uh, I work on both the, in, in both, um, the medical side, so as a nurse practitioner, but then also in the clinic doing this neuro rehab stuff.

And even some of the docs I work with, um, like a couple of surgeons are like, what in the world are you talking about? Um, one of the guys I work with, he's a spine surgeon, totally on board with this stuff. Like he loves this. I, I told him about Vegas nerve therapy and he loves this stuff, but, but no one really knows about it, um, outside of our small groups.

So my goal is to really just continue to educate myself so I can educate patients and help people learn because this is really, really fun stuff. And. And I think that if you can make changes to the body and utilize the body's potentials with the right sensory input, you can just make, you know, you can, you can change someone's life.

So pretty amazing. Okay. Last thing I wanted to show you that's in the research, um, in our clinics we do a lot of vagus nerve therapy, but we also couple it with other modalities and we call it coactivation. I always say to patients, the brain is a huge sensory sponge. From the moment we're born, it's seeking sensory stimuli.

And when that sensory stimuli is deprived, then the brain wants it even more. So, our goal in the clinic is to provide as much stimulation that's the right stimulation for that patient at the appropriate time and couple it with other therapies. So I thought this was a cool paper because it talked about how the Um, doing rehabilitative therapy alone didn't have as much of an impact on the nervous system as it does if you couple it with vagus nerve therapy.

So vagus nerve therapy for me, it's a very foundational therapy now. We assess vagal health on everybody, and then we provide that right type of vagus nerve simulation. Also, a very simple way to simulate the vagus nerve, which we were totally deprived of during COVID, just hanging out with people, being in a nice, fun, social setting, like minded people, giving somebody a hug or a high five lights up your vagus nerve.

So, make sure you give out some high fives today and hugs. But, when will we want to simulate it? I argue we want to simulate it every day in some form or fashion. Um, if you're, if you're working with someone who has had a brain injury. You really want to utilize the vagus nerve for several different things, and that includes improving blood flow to the brain.

Because blood carries oxygen, and oxygen helps the cells create ATP and energy, and it helps the brain improve and builds neuroplasticity in the brain. Um, you can use vagus nerve therapy to reduce pain, to increase the integrity in our barrier systems, like the brain and the gut. It helps reduce stress.

Meditation is a form of vagus nerve therapy. Decrease inflammation, I'm not good at it, but it is. Decrease inflammation, it can modulate brain function and increase blood brain barrier integrity. So it can improve health all over the place in the body and brain. There's so many ways you can use it and so many ways you can do it, and they can be very, very simple.

Um, so this is the ear, right? And this is where Dr. Crawford's gonna take over, but The way we do therapy in the clinic is we use different types of sensory stimuli to activate the vagus nerve. I had a new family in last week. Uh, the dad's a nurse practitioner. Um, they live in South Carolina, but they're huge Georgia Bulldogs fans.

I know you guys know football better than us here in Texas, but I thought that was kind of, it made no sense. He actually went to Clemson, but like, doesn't like their football team. So, we had a long conversation about that. Anyways, he's a family nurse practitioner, he, he works with pediatrics and adults, and I was explaining all this to him and he's like, Dude, I have no idea what you're talking about.

So then I started showing him some of these slides, pictures, the ears, and then I showed him my Will Ferrell picture, um, Because he was asking, like, he, uh, his son is a six year old, he had a birth trauma, and No one had really assessed vagal tone, vagal health, no one had ever done this type of therapy, so he was just confused.

Uh, but the more we spoke about it and the more I showed him, the more it made so much sense to him. Um, and then, the reason I wanted to show you this slide is because it's not just about sensory input to the head and the face. The whole body is receiving sensory input and changing the way the vagus nerve works.

So there's so many different things you can do. And Will's on board too, so. Last but not least, um, There's, there's one paper that I've come across that really, really changed my, my mind on, um, another type of sensory input, which is the low level laser. When Dr. Crawford first, like, approached me with it a few years ago, I was like, dude, this is just like a really fancy flashlight.

But the more I learned about it, and the more I saw results with it, I was blown away. So, my, my focus has always been going to the research, learning about brain, vagus nerve, and gut health. Because I think that if your brain and gut are good, you can be pretty good healthy wise overall. But this was such a cool paper because it showed that using laser therapy can change the way that the gut works and influence the gut microbiome, which, if you're not familiar with that, the healthier our gut is, the healthier our brain is.

Um, but that was just such a neat paper. So, okay. I have two more slides. Right? Okay. So, has anyone heard of the physiological psi? Uh, during COVID, I started listening to Andrew Huberman, he's a PhD researcher out of Stanford. Uh, he was on a couple of podcasts and then someone was like, Hey dude, you should make your own podcast.

And now he has like over 2 million followers, but he provides really good neuro, uh, information. He's not familiar. He, he talks a lot about neuroplasticity. He does eye research, like with the visual system. But he also, he talked about the physiological sigh, and it's something that we do naturally, but it's also a way that we, as a group, can actually stimulate our vagus nerve.

So I wanted everyone to try this real quick. So the way you do this is you take a long inhale through your nose, inhale through the nose, improve oxygen, and right when you get to the tip, take another little inhale, so, and then slowly let it out. You just stimulated your vagus nerve. Congratulations. Um, this is actually a reflexive breath that we do sometimes in times of stress, but you can do it consciously to improve your vagus nerve health.

And that's it. So, in our clinics, we're all about stimulation, um, but the way that the brain works is, um, You have to make positive changes to the nervous system, and then the nervous system has to chill. So, deep breaths and sleep are extremely important. And the reason I wanted to show you everyone this is, if you're doing therapy, if your kiddos are working so hard, and then they're totally crashed and burned, It's actually a really good thing when they're sleeping and they're tired because that's when all the connections are forming and that's when things are becoming, that's when good changes are happening in the brain.

So, I just wanted to share that with you guys because with my kids, when they're like being lazy and on the couch, I'm like, let's go, let's go, and then I have to remind myself, ah, maybe they're, I don't know. Okay. Anyways, thank you so much for having me. I'm going to let Dr. Crawford take over. Uh, my name is Ryan.

I'd love to speak with you and give you some high fives.

Dr. Brandon Crawford: Oh man. That was awesome, Ryan. Thank you so much. Um, how cool is he guys? I mean, I have to follow someone that had Will Ferrell in the slides. That's just not fair. Not fair at all, but that's okay. You know, there was a question yesterday about, um, sighing. And so, since he was just on it, the, the, the neuronal pool for sighing is actually the smallest reflexive neuronal pool in our brainstem.

It's very interesting. And so, whenever you do experience those times of stress, you will catch yourself doing that, that, that type of double breathing like Ryan was talking about. And I just thought it was interesting. That's actually the smallest reflexive. Neuronal pool in the brainstem. And that's its purpose is to stimulate the vagus nerve and other networks.

So, you know, it's interesting because, um, I was actually speaking with, um, a fellow in the laser industry yesterday. We're actually designing a new laser. Um, I've been working on this for about a year and it was cool because this person's been in the industry for over 30 years, he's actually the owner of one of the largest laser manufacturers, um, on the planet.

And we were talking about the new laser we have coming out. We're looking at the prototype. But the discussion quickly ventured into a new type of vagus nerve stimulator that's coming out. And it's actually stimulating all these parts of the ear and all these parts that you heard Ryan just talk about.

And he said, and this guy is, he's, you know, kind of, he's kind of old and crusty, uh, but that's okay. But, you know, he doesn't get excited. I've, I've talked with him a lot, right? And if you talk to researchers, you know, they're just like kind of monotone. They don't really. Get excited and you know, whatever.

But when he started talking about this, his voice changed, his intonation changed. And he goes, you know, I've been doing this for so long and I'm actually excited about this new product coming out because there's so much potential in this type of therapy. And he wasn't even the one producing it, but he knew the guy.

And it's just so amazing, right? We, we see the potential because we see the miracles like literally miracles that happen in our offices daily from just doing these various types of vagus nerve stimulus. We believe in them so much that we have actually filed various patents with the patent office with our methodology and the types of things that we're doing.

Um, and that's just, it, it's amazing, right? There's, there's so much going on right now in this, uh, type of therapy. It's amazing. So let's get going because we are running behind, but that's okay. Thanks, Ryan. That's okay. But really that was, that was great. I don't know how to follow Will Ferrell. It's just not fair.

Um, okay. It's just a little thing here. Exciting news from NeuroSolution. Um, we are combining our NeuroSolution methods with TheraSuit. We've been working and studying together with TheraSuit for a while now. And what we're going to do is we're going to be launching a new program in January, combining these two therapies.

It's going to be quite amazing. We've been very quiet about it. Um, but, this is the first time I'm saying anything about it. Um, we do have some very, very exciting new things on the stem cell front. So, I'm not going to say a whole lot about it and I wasn't going to say anything about it. But I had an experience.

I was writhing in pain from a botched back surgery in high school, right? So I had this botched surgery in high school, and I've been dealing with this pain going down my leg for, ever since, right? I'm 72 years old, which, I look pretty good, right? So, 72 years old, so back in high school, I had this injury. I had a botched surgery, and I've just been dealing with it ever since.

And I had an event, I had a trauma and I was on the floor writing a pain, 10 pain, not even joking. My wife was like, yeah, come on, what are you doing? Get up. Um, so anyway, I've been working with a neurosurgeon to help develop this new stem cell procedure that involves using light and laser therapy to actually activate the stem cells.

And then we use the laser to actually direct it. Or direct those activated stem cells to where we want them to go in the body. So I call her up because she actually focuses on the spine as well. And I said, Hey, I need surgery ASAP. I have three blown discs. Uh, I have a big wad of scar tissue. I need help now.

We were calling ORs in Austin. She was doing everything she could to get me in. And she said, Brandon, look, I can get you in in about a week and a half. It's like, that's the best we can do. I said, okay, what are we going to do in the meantime? She goes, let's do this stem cell procedure. I'm like, but we've been talking about the brain.

This is like herniated disc. This is like material on a nerve, and nothing's gonna help it besides surgery. And she goes, shut up, let me just do it. Okay. So, we do the procedure on Thursday, okay? Thursday, writhing in pain, can't move, um, I'm on oxycodone. Life is spinning. I'm just bad, right? So we do the procedure on Thursday.

I go into the office on Friday only because we had a family from Australia. We had some people I wanted to say bye to, but I walk in with the room spinning and just life is bad. Okay, I'm, uh, fast forward to Monday. I'm off all pain medications. And now I have like, I still have pain down my leg, but I mean, I'm here.

This is amazing. I'm like, seriously amazed by this procedure. So that's why I wanted to bring up, that is on the horizon. I'll give you more information about that, um, when the time comes. Here's how cool this is. Our group, NeuroSolution, we're talking with hospitals next week to implement these methods into hospital systems.

We are serious when we say we are going to change global health care. They approached us. That's how cool this is. We're also speaking to schools, uh, in the UAE to implement strategies in the school districts there. Okay, so let's go to Vegas, baby. Will Ferrell still better. So I've organized this lecture to be kind of like a mullet haircut, kind of business in the front, party in the back.

And what I want to do is, uh, I want to, you know, skip through the research, uh, a little bit. I want to get, um, to the, the end here so that I'm giving you a lot of procedures that you can be doing at home on yourself and on your kiddos. Okay. So we're going to blow through the business side a little bit.

That way we can spend more time on the party. So here's what I want to do. Ryan laid a great groundwork. of what the vagus nerve is, and what it can do, and how powerful it is. I want to expand from the vagus nerve and talk about the vagal system. Because the vagal system involves not just the vagus nerve, but various other networks and parts of the brain and body.

Okay? And what it does is it develops something called the autonomic state. Some call it the flow state. And what happens is this. Okay. You get, you've got this ventral vagal system, and by the way, all these things in blue, I'm going to describe what they are, so don't get lost in the terminology yet. So, we have this flow state, and we experience this on a daily basis.

If we need to socially engage, we're more involved with our ventral vagal system. If we need to fight or run away, we, we call upon our sympathetic tone. If we want to play, we need a combination of that social engagement with the ability to move. Because the sympathetic nervous system also moves us. And there's no way to get around that.

Right. So we have a combination there. When we need to shut down, we call on the dorsal vagal networks. And with intimacy, we need a combination of dorsal and ventral vagal. And so we have this flow state that we're constantly going through, we're going in and out of, we're socially engaging, we're withdrawing, we're approaching, we're running, we're fighting, we're, and we need this healthy flow to be able to navigate life.

And when we lose that ability to flow through this system. That's when life gets crazy. And that's when suffering occurs.

So, there's a chapter in the book I'm writing called Neurological Fallout from Life Threat, and I'm going to go into all of this in way more detail. This is from the Polyvagal Theory. If you haven't heard of Polyvagal Theory, it was by, it was, uh, proposed by Dr. Steven Porges. Um, who is, um, a pediatric cardiologist, and he says, Look, the polyvagal theory emphasizes that danger and life threat elicit different defensive response profiles.

According to the theory, danger reactions are associated with the accepted notions of a stress response expressed in increases in autonomic activation through the sympathetic nervous system. Nervous system and the adrenals. However, polyvagal theory also identifies a second defense system related to life threat that is characterized by a massive downregulation of autonomic function by an ancient pathway of the parasympathetic nervous system.

Because traditionally, even in medical school where tossed that, there's just a sympathetic and a parasympathetic nervous system, and that's not true. There's older networks within that parasympathetic nervous system. That actually exist and do different things and can shut us down and sometimes that's a bad thing.

But ultimately, ultimately it leads to better survival. And that's what has allowed our species to survive. I want you to sit with this. Safety is defined by feeling safe, not by the removal of threat. Okay? Let it permeate a little bit. Just because your kiddo is now out of a life threat scenario, or just because You're to a quote better place doesn't mean that your brain is not interpreting that this is safe or not safe right safety is defined by feeling safe, not by just the removal of threat.

I could spend an hour or longer on this alone. Those terms I was talking about. You will have access to these slides. So again, this is the business part of the mullet. I want to get to the party. But this is the dorsal vagal complex. This is the oldest part. This is that old parasympathetic part of the nervous system.

It's going to project to organs below the diaphragm. Those things that make you poop, like Ryan was talking about. Okay? This is where the fear paralysis reflex lives. This is what will shut you down. This will cause fainting, what people call vasovagal syncope. That chronic anxiety that just kind of comes out of nowhere.

Chronic fatigue, bradycardia, which is a slow heart rate. It can lead to multiple systems atrophy, okay? Which is where everything just kind of shuts down. We had a case of this last week, or a case leading to this last week. Can lead to organ dysfunction. And how does this help you survive, by the way? This is like playing possum.

Boom. So if you have a life threat scenario, alright, let's just, let's just take a drowning for example. If someone is drowning, all of a sudden, the brain goes, okay, I'm in a scenario, I can't get away from it, I can't run, I can't fight. What am I going to do? I'm going to shut down. Why am I going to shut down?

Because now my brain doesn't need as much to keep it alive. It doesn't need as much oxygen. It doesn't need as much nutrients. And so it shuts down. If you're being attacked, you also get a flood of opiates, right? So, during this situation, your body gets flooded with opiates. So that if you do get attacked, you're not going to feel it.

But what if you're stuck in this state? Now all of a sudden, maybe you're numb to the world. You are literally numb to the world. I have parents tell me, like, I don't feel anymore. I don't feel love. I don't think I love my spouse anymore. I don't have a relationship with my kids. I'm numb to the world. That they are stuck in this old part of the nervous system, the fear paralysis.

It is not just you. It is not a problem with you. It is your brain trying to protect you. It is your brain saying, I don't know how to run away from this. I don't know how to fight this, so I must protect myself so that I can at least feed my children and be here for them and protect them so I'm going to be numb.

It's your brain keeping you alive. And there's strategies, by the way, to work through this. And it's not just talk therapy. And then we have the sympathetic nervous system, and that's next to develop, right? And the sympathetic nervous system moves us, like I told you. It's also part of that fight or flight system.

It fires the adrenals. You get that adrenaline that floods the body. Obviously, if this is firing too much, then we have issues with chronic stress. Parts of the brain can start to shrink if we hear too much, like the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus. The amygdala lights up and gets really angry, and we're going to talk about that too.

And then this is where it's at. This is where the winners are. People that have a strong, healthy ventral vagal system. Now, the only reason why I list the ventral, uh, vagal system here is, uh, this nucleus ambiguous and cranial nerves, 5, is because those are your therapeutic windows in. If we know what comprises this part of the nervous system, we then can develop strategies therapeutically to rehab this and turn it on.

And I'll tell you why that's important, but this is also where social engagement comes from. This is your facial tone, your intonation, your prosody, your acoustic perception. This is your ability to walk into a room, read people's faces, and go, Even though that person's ugly, they're not trying to hurt me.

Even though that person's voice is kind of raspy, I know they're not mad at me. This is that system. Do you ever have someone that's like, what's wrong with you? What'd I do with you? What are you talking about? Well, you, you're pissed off at me. No, I'm not. I didn't do anything. What are you talking about?

That's a dysfunctional ventral vagal system. So everyone tonight can go back to their spouse and be like, your ventral vagal system sucks. Not mad at you. Leave me alone. I'm just tired. I'm numb to the world. I'm dorsal vagal baby.

But look, if we are protected. With the newer ventral circuit, we do fine. However, if we lose the capacity of this newer vagal circuit to regulate physiological state, we become a defensive fight or flight machine. When functioning defensively as a fight or flight machine, humans and other mammals need to move.

If we are confined, such as being placed in isolation or restrained, our nervous system reads cues and functionally wants to immobilize. I've been studying the ramifications of locked in syndrome for several years now, and something that is not listed on that autonomic state is when you get in that, this is my opinion, this is what I call Crawford conjecture, this is what I'm finding.

Is that you have this oscillation between the dorsal vagal system and the sympathetic tone because the brain is going, move! And the sympathetics are going, I'm trying! I'm firing! And you see the heart rate elevate. And you see the person get pissed off. And you see your kid struggling. But they can't move because there's been damage to the motor tracks.

Especially with anoxic and hypoxic brain injuries. Those motor pathways get damaged, and so they can't move. And so what happens? The brain goes default, go back into dorsal vagal and shut down, and so you get this oscillatory state. That's locked in syndrome.

When challenged, the regulation of the autonomic nervous system sequentially decreases. It degrades to the older circuits and is an adaptive attempt to survive. And I'll draw that out for you. This is what it looks like when you walk into my office. If you've seen me, you have probably watched me draw this.

Let's make it a little simpler. So this is what I'm talking about. You have your dorsal vagal complex. It develops first. You have your sympathetic nervous system. It develops next. You have your ventral vagal complex, it develops last. The sequential degrading is this, your sympathetic tone will say, Hey, rather than shutting down and playing possum, let's move, let's fight, let's run away, let's do something.

And so it will, it'll turn off the dorsal vagal complex. And then the ventral vagal should kick in and go, Hey, rather than run away and fight, how about we just read the tone here? How about we go, Hey, maybe that person's not trying to kill us. Maybe that person's just trying to talk to us like about some political things and we just don't like it.

So the ventral vagal system will shut down the sympathetic nervous system. And that's how it should work. But then we have this amygdala over here, which is part of the limbic system. And what is the amygdala? Yes. Thank you, Francesca. The amygdala is an asshole. I, I know I'm in a church right now. I'm sorry, but you are in Texas and in Texas, we will pray.

And then while we're holding our Bible, we will grab our beer and cuss at our kids. We will instill the fear of God. into our offspring.

Welcome to Texas. Um, and so this amygdala, which is a part of the limbic system, doesn't have any kind of like logic or reason, it just knows What was connected to those life threat situations? And if anything reminds that amygdala about a life threat scenario, it will fire. And it will go, run away or shut down.

Cause this is life threat. Now it can be a sound, a light, an emotion, a feeling, a smell. It can be some kind of non noxious stimulus that doesn't really mean anything to us. But that amygdala interprets it subconsciously as a threat. And there's mechanisms within the prefrontal cortex and the vestibular system that can shut that down.

And I'm telling you this, again, because these are therapeutic windows in.

Alright, so let's get to it. So, you heard Ryan talk about blood flow. Very important. Um, and again, I want to stay on time here, so I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on these things. Next few slides. But basically, we have to have adequate blood flow. We actually do blood illumination with lasers and light therapy, um, but you can actually go out into the sun and actually experience the benefits of light therapy.

We are designed with photoreceptors all over us, outside and inside, and those photoreceptors need to be charged, right? And it was actually Ryan that explained this to me so well that I'll never forget it. He said it's like their little solar panels. And those solar panels need to be outside and, and receive photons so that we can drive energy and drive our biological processes.

We need, we're like batteries. We need to go outside and get charged up. Right? And it's interesting. I was just reading a paper about blood illumination. They're actually utilizing blood illumination strategies in the wrist. To actually influence the TMJ joint, they were actually addressing a TMJ dysfunction through blood illumination.

That was amazing. They were, they were actually getting good outcomes. Uh, we need fuel, we need adequate nutrition and supplementation. Um, this concept of primitive reflexes is so important because primitive reflexes, when we start to integrate them, we're actually integrating areas of the brainstem, right?

And the brainstem nuclei, a big part of that are the. The vagal nuclei that live in there. And so one window in to rehabbing the vagus nerve is doing our primitive reflex exercises.

And again, we'll talk about ventral vagal stimulus, more vestibular and frontal prefrontal stimulus. These are some sites that I like to use for blood illumination. You have the carotids. Uh, you have the heart, you have the abdominal aorta, but you can illuminate pretty much any major artery and see benefit downstream from that artery.

It's a really cool concept. It's actually been around for a long time. The Russians first were doing this. The Russians don't like to publish their research. They like to write about it and keep it secret. But I know a lot of Russians and they've actually given me some cool articles. They've dug up some stuff from The Soviet Union when anyway, we won't go there, but, um, so again, to sustain life and thrive, we need blood flow.

We need movement. We need fuel and activation. That's what it boils down to fuel and activation. Um, we have performed a pilot study. We're now expanding it. Um, a couple of things. Number 1, we have 2 FDA clinical trials going on for Vegas nerve stimulus. Um, not our company, NeuroSolution, but we're a part of it.

Um, and that's going on, which is phenomenal. And that's based on our work. That's based on the company, uh, that's doing it, actually seeing the types of results that we were getting. And they said, we have got to figure out what you're doing, because the tools that we're using were not designed for vagus nerve rehab.

I saw the device. It was developed for sensory motor neuropathy. And I said, what are you doing for this super segmentally? They're like, what are you talking about? So what are you doing for the brain? They said, nothing is we do this for like paralyzed feet and motor neuropathy, sensory neuropathy. I said, this is what we need for the Vegas nerve based on our work.

They've now initiated a clinical trials, which is amazing. It's going great so far. But in this study, what we're doing is we're combining, um, laser therapy with Vegas nerve stimulus. Um, and if you notice the energy densities, the dosage, um, I do have theories. I have what I'm calling the Crawford theory for co activation is that, and I'll get into that in a little bit, but our, our dosages here exceed what the literature would say is safe.

So if you, if you look there, we're using 150 joules per centimeter squared per location, 210 joules per centimeter squared per location, and we're getting great results. So we have a laser therapy only group, vagal stim only group, and then we're combining the two, which are, which is our co activation group.

And again, the concept is that there's what's called a biphasic dose response curve. Um, and we all know this. We all know what the biphasic dose response curve is. That's the concept of too little doesn't do much, just the right amount, just the right amount does, you know, the, the perfect, like does the optimal dosage or whatever, you get the best outcome.

If you do too much, you can start to fail systems. They can start to be damaged. That's true with water. That's true with supplementation. It's true with medication. It's true with everything, right? Too much of something can cause harm. But what the biphasic dose response curve does not actually go into in the research is the concept of when systems are stressed.

The concept of living systems versus non living systems were in vitro studies. And when I brought this concept to a Harvard, um, researcher, they said, you're right. And this Harvard researcher has actually written, um, various articles. They've actually done research with, uh, Dr. Hamblin, who's a leading researcher in the field of photobiomodulation.

And he said, Brandon, you're right. We need to tease this out. We need to do more. And because of this, um, this pilot study is being expanded and now I'm actually designing a bigger study specifically for the brain, uh, applying these concepts. So that's just the, the testing measurements we used. Um, this is just going to show you, this is that Simpod.

Uh, this is the Simbacontra region that Ryan was talking about. This is the pulse radio frequency device. We also used an area called the pure patch for the base nerve behind the ear. And then we did a laser therapy over the prefrontal cortex. Um, okay, and this is real time changes in our QEG findings. Um, let's go ahead and, can you just play the first one, David?

So, this was, uh oh, that's Cabo, that's beautiful. I took that picture. Um, whenever you stimulate Simba concha, you go straight to Cabo. Um, and it's fantastic. I want to go there again. You know,

I, uh, I spent three months in Costa Rica, uh, as a sabbatical. I was actually done practicing. I, I was done. I sold everything here in the States. Um, and I, me and my family, we moved to Costa Rica. Okay. And it was beautiful. I was actually day trading. I was just, I was done. I was done with medical care. I, you people burn me out.

I'll just say that, but I love you. I love you. It's all good. Uh, but God said, you're not done. You're not designed to just chill on a beach in Costa Rica and day trade. So get your butt back to America. So I did. I'm just buying time while David figures this out. Oh my gosh. Okay, cool. So what was happening?

So this was a severe, severe brain injury. Um, this, this person was actually not fully consciously aware he was in a locked in state. And as soon as we started to simulate the Simba concha, you actually started to see beta waves be generated within the brain. And so with that being said that, so you're going to see those white streaks come and that's whenever we're stimulating the Simba concha.

So you're seeing real time changes. Uh, I didn't see really any beta waves in this individual. Uh, at all, right? They're, they're pretty much in a, like they're in a comatose state pretty much. Um, but as soon as we started to simulate the Simba concha with this pulse radio frequency device, we start to generate beta waves within the brain.

One consistent finding within our study is that we actually do get a lot of beta waves. It's actually really cool. Um, thanks, David. We won't go to the other one. Just go ahead and can I go to the next slide? We won't review that. You get that. Okay. How do we gate this amygdala? How do we make sure that that amygdala.

isn't an a hole. How do we make sure that that guy doesn't fire into these systems? We can use the vestibular system and the prefrontal cortex. And I'm doing this, what I'm doing is, again, I'm like Ryan, I want to go to the research, I want to find out, hey, this is my theory, I want to prove it, or I go to the research and figure out why, okay?

So, this is showing that, um, the amygdala, uh, and the vestibular system are actually connected, um, basically whenever you perform novel vestibular stimuli, You will actually gate the amygdala by connecting it to the medial prefrontal cortex. But you will actually fire the central amygdaloid nucleus, um, whenever you do this novel type of vestibular stimulus.

And novel, there's two concepts. Novel is important. It has to be a novel type of vestibular stimulus, and it needs to be appropriate. It needs to be the proper amplitude, the proper direction. It needs to be targeted, not just general. I'm not going to go through that. You can read that. You'll have these slides.

This is cool. Specifically, amygdala and prefrontal activity integration are reported to play a key role in the regulation of emotions. And again, that's getting into the limbic system there. Um, we won't go into receptor based autoimmunity at this point in time. And again, this concept of the prefrontal amygdala fear networks come into focus here.

Um, talking about PTSD, right? This is, another topic is PTSD, right? That, that has a huge interplay about what's going on, both in the person that was injured, but then also, In the caregivers, right? Because you're triggered, whether you know it or not. There's a level of PTSD, there's a level of this going on in you as well.

Anything that reminds you or subconsciously reminds you of the events that have transpired will send you down this rabbit hole of events.

So, at the end of the day, what do we need to be targeting? The ventral vagal system, the vestibular system, and the medial prefrontal cortex. How do we do that? Here we go. This is the party. This is the part of the mullet party. Here we go. Acoustics. There's two constants in our world. Light and sound. Okay?

Does everyone know who Nikola Tesla is? Nikola Tesla said, if we're going to understand life, if we're going to understand We have to understand photons, electrons, and frequencies. That sounds kind of new agey. Nikola Tesla said that. So light and sound are our two constants in life. We are so designed, with various types of receptors, to be stimulated by light and sound.

Acoustics are so important. Think of it this way, when you listen to music that makes you happy, makes you want to dance, does your spouse or kids always love that music too? No. I hate the music my wife listens to, but for her, she experiences a positive neurochemical experience. That's a good thing for her brain.

For me, it's something else, right? That's because we're responding to different frequencies, to different concepts, to different things within that music, right? Acoustics are important. If there's music that your child enjoyed, play it for them. If there's music that brings their heart rate down, that brings their respiration down, that calms their body, it's doing that for a reason.

Play it for them, okay? It's important. Something as simple as that. Tympanic membrane. Okay, the eardrum. There's a device I'm going to show you on the next slide. It's called the Zoctivite device. That you can actually use to simulate the tympanic membrane. It's super easy. I'll show you that. Cold stimulus.

Yes, I put ice packs on kids faces. Because I mean, no, it's because this concept of cold stimulates the vagus nerve. And I know you're thinking, Crawford, I hate being cold, I'd rather be warm. But, whenever there's a cold stimulus, Vessels constrict. And the vagus nerve says, hey, we need blood flow, so open them up.

And so it fires the vagus nerve to increase blood flow. And so it's a vagal stimulus. Cold stimulus on the face. I even have kiddos, uh, parents actually just putting their feet in an ice bath. Or just one foot, or one hand, or something like that. Just to stimulate that system. Don't go and throw your kid into an ice bath.

Cold bath water. Don't do that. Okay, we can start slow. But for you, by all means, do a cold plunge. My wife and I like to do this thing where we're in the hot tub and then whenever it gets cold outside and the water is like, you know, 60 degrees in the pool, we'll go from the hot tub to the cold water and we'll see who can stay there the longest, right?

She always wins. But my wife is super competitive. She will never admit it. Um, Gargling. This is for you, caregivers. Loud and proud. Head towards the ceiling like you're yelling at the ceiling. Water is spilling out everywhere. Okay, that's simulating. Um, the vagus nerve gagging, doing gagging reflexes, gagging reflex stimulation.

Um, when my wife was actually having hormonal problems, um, she had a gag pin, right? And I made her at every stop sign, at every red light, she actually had to do some gags. That was part of her rehab. You can be doing this at home. Vibration, Dr. Cedermark already touched on that. This is that ZOC device you can use in the ear to simulate the tympanic membrane.

Okay. Some more things, a little more involved here. So, electrical stimulus to the face. Uh, to the trap muscles, uh, you can get something like peripheral nerve stimulator, um, which actually the one that we use came off the market, but you can simulate areas like the traps, the SCM muscles, uh, that StemPod is the pulse radio frequency device.

Uh, love, love, love using it on the simpa concha. It is extremely powerful. Um, and how long, how long do we do this for? Well, if you're doing this and someone, you know, Um, that has a brain injury, what you want to do is you want to monitor their pulse ox. So, if you get oxygen levels drop by 5%, heart rate increase, increases by 10 beats per minute, we're going to stop at that point in time and let them recover.

Okay, that's going to be your goal. Mark of, Hey, that's enough. We're going to slow down, let them recover and then do it again. The stipular activation, instead of walking you through this, if you use this right here, a little QR code code, um, it'll take you to a video where I walk you through this. Um, I do believe I made a mistake in that video when I'm talking about the calorics, so sorry about that.

Oops, I make mistakes too, just ask my wife. Um, but that's for you, I think it's about an 18 minute long video. Uh, prefrontal activation. Exercise is huge, like Ryan noted earlier. Meditation is huge, it's a big type of prefrontal activation. Um, I'm not very good at it either. Purposefully restraining from wants and needs.

Something as simple as waiting to go to the bathroom. Ryan actually taught me this too. See how much you teach me? You did! Ha ha ha ha ha ha. So, it's that point where you're like, I'm about to pee in my pants. I'm literally about to pee in my pants. Wait 10 more minutes. That actually activates networks in the brain that are inhibitory and actually help to build, uh, those networks for you.

This is all about neuroplasticity, right? Moms do that every day, 100%. But I'm talking to dads because we don't. So dads like to grab their phone and go sit in the bathroom for about 30 minutes, right? Um, transcranial direct current stimulus. This is a fantastic tool. Um, we love to use the Fisher Wallace device, which is actually, uh, an alternating current.

It's not a true transcranial direct current, actually in colleagues and friends with Dr. Muhammad Omar. He was the original pioneer in transcranial direct current. Um, the patient zero for this was amazing. Okay. So listen, I've got time, so I'm going to tell you. So, I'm in Dubai, hanging out with Dr. Omar, who's a, he's a neuropsychiatrist, and we're talking about transcranial direct current stimulus, and um, I'm like, man, how did you develop this?

You know, this, this concept, this whole idea, and he goes, let me tell you about the first patient. He goes, this, this pharmacist came into him and said, I have severe depression, I want to kill myself. Um, this is, you know, bad, bad, bad, and he goes, can you help me? He goes, yeah, I've been thinking about something.

Um, I'm gonna put electrodes on your forehead, and I'm gonna shock your brain. And the pharmacist said, why not? I'm to a point to where I don't really care what happens. And so he did. He put the electrodes on. And he shocked his brain, and Patient Zero falls to the ground. And Muhammad Omar looked at me, and he goes, I thought I killed him!

And then, no joke, he wakes up, he hasn't been depressed ever since. So that was Patient Zero. Uh, pretty impressive. But, it's come a long way, by the way, don't be scared, it's come a long way, that's not going to be what happens. Uh, with this, um, you are not patient zero on this one, but, um, so this device is amazing.

It's something that you can use. It's hands free. You can put it on your temples, your forehead, or whatever, and what it's going to do is start to bring blood flow and start to wake up those areas of the brain passively. Okay, so you as caregiver, caregivers can use it. You can use this on, uh, your kiddos, on your loved ones, very, very important.

Go no go activities, uh, this is fun. Um, this helps to stimulate. Um, Inhibitory control. So one thing that our higher order brain or neocortex, the newest part of the brain is really, really, really responsible for is inhibition. Okay. That ability to control like, Hey, I don't want to punch that person or I'm not going to run away or That kind of thing, and so go no go activities are really important.

You can play Simon Says, um, there's some games where you can have a stimulus, and that person, instead of clapping that hand, they clap the other hand. Uh, but there's all types of go no go types of activities out there. Smell is actually really important. Extremely simulatory, and we use smell a lot in our care.

Uh, it simulates various parts of the brain, like the orbital frontal cortex and various parts of the brainstem. Neurofeedback, which is where we can actually cap someone up and start to regulate brainwaves. Um, and you get rewarded based on a visual stimulus or a sound stimulus, and it starts to entrain preferential brainwave activity.

Uh, within these networks. And of course our laser therapy is fantastic, right? These are the areas of the brain that turn on with smell. So pretty cool. So you can stimulate the amygdala, the hippocampus, hypothalamus, the orbital frontal cortex, um, and other regions like the temporal lobe. Uh, this is a very simple strategy.

And using something like frankincense oil, which actually increases oxygenation in the brain by up to 25%, something as simple as using frankincense oil on your kids, on you, throughout the day, can have actually really profound impact. That's Dr. Ryan's slide saying the same thing, pretty much. That's Dr.

Ryan's slide as well. Um, just a little interesting thing. Heh heh heh heh heh. Heh heh heh heh. Yeah. So, smell comes in. Instead of crossing over to the other part of the brain, it actually goes to the same side. So most of our sensory stimulus come up and crosses over to the other side. Smell does not. So if we need more left hemisphere activity, we'll stimulate the left nostril.

Right hemisphere activity will stimulate the right nostril. And I thought this was actually my taste slide. Uh, taste is very important and powerful too. Uh, taste actually dives deep into the brain stem, into the pons then it rises rostrally, goes through the thalamus, and then it shoots over into various parts of the cortex.

One of those areas is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. That's why taste and smell are so important. We'll use smell a lot on kiddos, we'll use taste a lot on kids, but you can be doing this at home as well. And, I'm going to go ahead and skip over this. This is just what it kind of looks like. And sorry David, I said I didn't have music, but there is, this, anyway.

This is so, so much better with sound because this kid was so cute. Anyways, talking about co activation and going through all the therapies and whatnot.

Oh, look at you. Thanks, David. What 

Voice Over: is happening now? What is happening here? Tell me! Tell me! What are we doing? Co activation! That's right! Co activation! Oh, 

Dr. Brandon Crawford: yeah! Awesome. Uh, one of my favorite stories. We have so many of these and Vanessa has done a fantastic job. Her role with us is actually to help tell the world what we're doing, because what we're doing is changing global health care.

And I'm so fortunate to have her on board with us, but this is a really cool story about Kaysen, um, who is a fighter, guys. Everyone in here has a fighter, and you can relate to this kid. Okay, um, I want to say this. A good continuation of what we've discussed here is going to be if you go and actually attend uh, Kristen Hughes's lecture today, what she's going to do is she's going to do a continuation of hey, caregivers, how can you continue to utilize this?

Simple but powerful things, not just for your kiddos, but for yourself. So I just want to draw your attention. She's an occupational therapist that is applying traditional OT with functional neurology, and she's the only one doing it. And it's fantastic, and she is just a phenomenal human. So intelligent and just a phenomenal person.

So I want you all to meet her and go experience her lecture today. Um, and that's how you can connect with us. So I kind of made it on time. Rhonda, I may have gotten this kind of back on track. Look at that. So that's what I got. So we're stuck in the back there. I don't have my margarita machine because the church wouldn't let me.

So I do apologize for that. But come hang with us, come give us some fives and hugs like Ryan talked about. We'll stimulate your vagus nerve and I love you guys and thank you so much.

Voice Over: We hope today's episode has inspired you to take that next step towards your best self. Remember, the path to longevity is paved with small daily decisions. Your journey is unique and every step, every choice brings you closer to your ultimate vision of a healthier, happier life. For more insights, tips and resources, visit drbrandoncrawford.com

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