A year or so ago I attended a talk by a professor whose research team is doing a lot of fascinating work with vagus nerve stimulation, particularly in the realm

A year or so ago I attended a talk by a professor whose research team is doing a lot of fascinating work with vagus nerve stimulation, particularly in the realm of physical rehabilitation after major trauma and ischemic events. Murine models indicated stimulation could trigger bouts of neural plasticity which, when coupled with physical rehabilitation, dramatically improved the rats' recovery from induced ischemic trauma. Pretty amazing stuff, especially when paired with some of the engineering work done on artificial limbs. There are also potential psychiatric and learning applications -- IIRC, he specifically singled out language acquisition as a research target -- but those, I think, are not yet as well-attested.