Fig. 1.
Inflammatory reflex activation reduces whole-blood LPS-induced TNF production in epilepsy patients. Electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve in humans inhibits whole-blood LPS-induced TNF release. Blood was obtained from epilepsy patients (n = 7) undergoing implantation of a vagus nerve-stimulation device at different time points: before anesthesia induction and before vagus nerve stimulation; after anesthesia induction and before vagus nerve stimulation (pre-VNS); and 4 h after vagus nerve stimulation (post-VNS). Whole blood was incubated with LPS and TNF (A), IL-6 (B), and IL-1β (C) levels in plasma were determined after 4 h in culture. The significance of the differences between mean values at each time point was tested by unpaired ANOVA (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01). Data are shown as mean ± SEM.