People who experience emotional trauma are often left with intense memories that they can’t shake. Stimulating the vagus nerve accelerates the rate at which the brain adapts. Earlier studies in rodents have supported the idea that exposure therapy paired with VNS enhances extinction of fear-based memories while also reducing anxiety. “We are targeting specific regions of the brain that are involved in learning and maintaining fear memories. “We record data from the extinction network in these animals while they receive VNS and extinguish the conditioned fears,” she said.