Fig. 1. Vagal stimulation improves outcomes in a mouse model of colitis.

(A) Kaplan Meier survival curve and time course of (B) body weight and (C) disease activity index (DAI), (D) serum concentrations of corticosterone (Cort) or norepinephrine (NE), and heart rate variability (HRV measured as the Low/High-Frequency ratio) in 3%DSS mice with or without stress or (E) stress and non-stress mice with sham or vagal stimulation (VS). Stress mice were subjected to 21 days of restraint then received either sham or VS followed by either clean water (control) or 5 days of DSS treatment. (E) Kaplan Meier survival curve and timecourse of (G) body weight, (H) DAI, and (I) intestinal bleeding in non-stress (dashed lines) and stress (solid lines, St) with and without sham or VS. in stress DSS mice with sham or vagal stimulation. (J) Intestinal permeability, colon weights, (K) representative macroscopic colons and group colon lengths, (L) colonic H&E (20x, scale 200μM), (M) histological score, and (N) colon IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-10 concentrations at day 7 in control and DSS mice with sham or vagal stimulation. Data are representative of experiments that were replicated on different dates. For survival analysis mice were followed for 14days, *P<0.05 vs Sham, #P<0.05 vs St-Sham DSS (n=10 from two repeated experiments, Long Rank test). *P<0.05 vs Control (n=5, Two-way ANOVA with Bonferroni’s post-hoc test). *P<0.05 vs Control, #P<0.05 vs sham DSS (n=5, One-way ANOVA with Bonferroni’s post-hoc test). Graphs represent the mean ± SEM of experiments repeated twice on different dates.