The vagus is the nerve to know

Speaking. Breathing. Eating. The da-dum, da-dum, da-dum of your heart. The vagus nerve (aka Cranial Nerve X or, more poetically, the Wandering Nerve) plays a crucial role in all of these essential functions, linking brain and organs in what’s called the nervous system’s superhighway. While most of its important work passes without notice, the vagus has long been on medicine’s radar, as far back as the Greek physician Galen in the second century.