Stimulate your blue spot to maximise neuroplasticity and ensure that your brain recovers!

If you have had a stroke, a traumatic brain injury, or some other condition that has caused damage to your brain, then it is vitally important that you make the best recovery possible. Physiologically, recovery depends on two distinct processes: neurogenesis and neuroplasticity.
Neurogenesis
Neurogenesis is when your brain forms new nerves. Unfortunately, neurogenesis largely comes to a halt after about two years of age. Although, in principle, neurogenesis can occur in adults, reliable methods of promoting neurogenesis are few and far between. Research into the use of stem cells is ongoing but we are floundering when it comes to clinical application. Interestingly, vagal nerve stimulation is believed to promote neurogenesis but the evidence in that regard is thin.
Neuroplasticity
That’s where the blue spot comes into the picture. Neuroplasticity is the other physiological process that underpins recovery from brain injury and you can be certain that neuroplasticity will occur in your brain.
Neuroplasticity is one of the key ingredients in the recipe for recovery. In the neurosciences, there is a lot of hype about neuroplasticity and it is, unfortunately, a misunderstood concept. In fact, neuroplasticity is something that happens in everyone’s brain all the time. So, exactly what is neuroplasticity and what has the blue spot got to do with it?
Rewiring the Brain
Neuroplasticity is the process of forming new connections in the brain. That means forming new synapses, which are the places where nerves connect. Each time you learn something, you literally make a new connection in your brain. The nerves get rewired as a memory is formed and consolidated.
However, when you have had injury to your brain, then you need neuroplasticity to do more than simply support memory function. Then, you need healthy nerves to take over the function of damaged nerves. For people with injured brains, that is the crucial element of neuroplasticity. Shifting functions from injured nerves to healthy nerves. And that requires a significant amount of rewiring in the brain.
Neuroharmonics
How do you boost neuroplasticity and recovery after your brain has been damaged? What can you do to ensure that you make the best recovery possible? To start, you need to make sure that your brain is as healthy as possible. That means that you sleep well and that your nutritional status is optimal and that you eat the right foods. It requires you to get appropriate exercise that stimulates your brain.
Furthermore, you need the right kind of cognitive rehabilitation and emotionally you need to be in a good space. These aspects of brain health are all covered by our Neuroharmonics programme, so it is a good idea to investigate that intervention because it facilitates recovery. However, Neuroharmonics does not directly increase neuroplasticity, which is what you really want.
Vagal Nerve Stimulation
Fortunately, we have some other treatment options that directly improve neuroplasticity, most especially vagal nerve stimulation. This treatment is effective at boosting neuroplasticity even years after the damage. So, how does this work and what has the confounded blue spot got to do with it?
Vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) is a form of bioelectric neuromodulation. That’s just fancy terminology to say that we tweak brain function by sending a carefully shaped electrical impulses into your brain. VNS has been around for some decades now. Rigorous scientific research has conclusively demonstrated that patients undergoing upper limb rehabilitation after stroke make better recoveries if their treatment is accompanied by VNS. That is the proof of concept research. Furthermore, it does not matter whether we are talking about upper limb or lower limb, or physical functioning or mental functioning. The benefits for the brain are the same. VNS is scientifically proven to work.
Hard Science
While VNS falls under the rubric of complementary and alternative medicine, it is not whoo-whoo stuff, no incantations, no magic spells. Rather, VNS is carefully researched and fully in the mainstream of medical neuroscience. What is great about it is that there are no side effects. Since it is not a drug, there is no interaction with other medication. It is safe and gentle and remarkably effective.
Fortuitous discoveries in neuroanatomy mean that we no longer need to do surgery for VNS treatment. Instead, nowadays we attach an electrode to your ear and, providing the electrode is in exactly the right position, we are able to stimulate the vagal nerve. (Be aware that people sell VNS devices for which the electrodes are not positioned correctly. Use a supplier that understands the neuroanatomy: Ormond Neuroscience. 😊)
The Blue Spot
Finally, we get to the blue spot! The locus coeruleus is a small nucleus in the brain stem. In Latin, locus coeruleus means “blue spot.” While the locus coeruleus is just a few millimetres in diameter, it is a major role player when it comes to neuroplasticity. When we do VNS, we send an electrical impulse into the blue spot, the locus coeruleus.
Remarkably, the blue spot is only two synapses away from the electrode on your ear. So, VNS is an amazingly precise way of directly stimulating the blue spot and boosting neuroplasticity.

Neuroplasticity and the Blue Spot
Let’s get a little technical. The locus coeruleus plays a crucial role in regulating neuroplasticity, particularly through its influence on attention, arousal, learning, and memory. Located in the brainstem, the locus coeruleus is the principal source of noradrenaline in the brain, which acts as both a neurotransmitter and neuromodulator. This system helps the brain adapt and reorganize in response to experience, injury, or new information—all key elements of neuroplasticity. This is how the locus coeruleus modulates neuroplasticity:
Regulation of Synaptic Neuroplasticity
Noradrenaline modulates synaptic strength, facilitating long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD)—mechanisms underlying learning and memory. Locus coeruleus activity ensures that salient or emotionally charged events promote stronger memory formation by selectively enhancing plasticity in the hippocampus (the brain’s memory centre) and cortex (the grey matter where thinking happens).
Arousal and Attention Control
Neuroplasticity is experience-dependent, meaning that focused attention and arousal are essential for effective rewiring. The locus coeruleus promotes this by increasing noradrenaline release in response to novelty, stress, or attention-demanding tasks.
This selective attention enhances the brain’s ability to prioritize and rewire critical circuits for learning and adaptive behaviour.
Modulating Emotional and Cognitive Flexibility
The locus coeruleus – noradrenaline system enhances plasticity in regions like the amygdala (which plays a role in emotion and socialisation) and the prefrontal cortex (attention, executive functions, self-regulation), promoting emotional fine-tuning, cognitive flexibility and adaptive behaviour.
This flexibility allows individuals to shift between behaviours and thoughts, crucial for recovery from trauma or injury and for acquiring new skills. Being adaptable is crucial to survival, as we know from the theory of evolution.
Role in Recovery from Brain Injury
In brain injuries or strokes, the locus coeruleus boosts compensatory plasticity, supporting the recruitment of new neural circuits. Noradrenaline facilitates the recovery process after brain injury by enhancing the brain’s ability to form new pathways and increasing alertness, which is often reduced post-injury.
Control of Neurogenesis and Inflammation
Noradrenaline released by the locus coeruleus plays a significant role in promoting neurogenesis primarily in brain regions such as the subventricular zone and the hippocampus. Neurogenesis is a crucial aspect of neuroplasticity and is linked to learning, memory, and emotional regulation.
Noradrenaline also has anti-inflammatory effects, which helps to protect the brain from oxidative stress that could impair plasticity.
Locus Coeruleus Dysfunction and Maladaptive Neuroplasticity
When the locus coeruleus is overactive (e.g., in chronic stress) or underactive (e.g., in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s), neuroplasticity becomes impaired. This can result in cognitive decline, emotional dysregulation, and learning deficits, illustrating how proper locus coeruleus function is essential for maintaining healthy brain plasticity.
In summary, the locus coeruleus is a key regulator of neuroplasticity, influencing attention, learning, memory, emotional regulation, and recovery from brain injury through the controlled release of noradrenaline. Its role ensures the brain’s capacity to adapt and reorganize.
Supplements for Neuroplasticity
Enhancing neuroplasticity does not stop with VNS. We also give you a supplement to take that your brain uses when it forms dendritic spines. That is the process by which a synapse is formed in the brain, which is where two nerves connect. A new connection happens when the axon of one nerve synapses with the dendrite of another nerve. To reinforce that connection, the dendrite sprouts a small little outgrowth that we call a dendritic spine. The process of forming a dendritic spine requires a particular substance, a component of one of the vitamins. So, taking that supplement helps to facilitate neuroplasticity. It is natural and, taken at the recommended dose, has no side effects.
Optimising Recovery
So, taking the relevant supplement and using vagal nerve stimulation to stimulate the locus coeruleus significantly enhances neuroplasticity in the brain. It primes the brain to form new connections. Then, once the brain is primed, you need to use your brain to work on whichever brain function needs to recover.
Obviously, that will differ from one person to the next. Sometimes, you might work with a therapist, such as a speech therapist or occupational therapist, to try and restore a particular brain function. Alternatively, you may work at home, doing your own rehabilitation, shaping your brain to form new connections. If you have primed your brain with the necessary substance and with neuromodulation using vagal nerve stimulation, then your brain will find it easier to form those new connections. And that is how you boost neuroplasticity!
If you keep working at it, then you will reinforce the connections and the brain function in question will gradually improve. Like with anything else in life, you need to make the effort and put in the time order to get the reward. However, improved brain function is a great reward!
If you would like to know more, please get in touch.
