Clinical researchers at Glasgow University are aiming to help patients overcome some of the physical disabilities caused by a stroke.
The team from the university's Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences will undertake the world's first in-human trial of vagus nerve stimulation in stroke patients.
Strokes, which affect 280 per 100,000 people in Scotland annually, can result in the loss of brain tissue and negatively affect various bodily functions from speech to movement, depending on the location of the stroke.
The study, which will be carried out at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow, will recruit 20 patients who suffered a stroke around six months ago and who have been left with poor arm function despite receiving the best available treatment.
Each participant will receive three one-hour sessions of intensive physiotherapy each week for six weeks to help improve their arm function.
Half of the group will also receive an implanted Vivistim device, a vagus nerve stimulator, which connects to the vagus nerve in the neck. When they are receiving physiotherapy to help improve their arm, the device will stimulate the nerve.
Lead researcher Dr Jesse Dawson, a stroke consultant and clinical senior lecturer in medicine, said: "It's a little bit like a cardiac pacemaker. It's a small device that sits under the skin in the chest, but instead of connecting to the heart, it connects to a nerve in the neck.
"That nerve is one of the major nerves that goes to the brain. By stimulating the nerves, you can cause upstream changes in the brain without having to go into the brain."
It is hoped that the device will stimulate release of the brain's own chemicals, called neurotransmitters, that will help the brain form new neural connections which might improve participants' arm mobility.
Dr Dawson added: "When the brain is damaged by stroke, important neural connections that control different parts of the body can be damaged which impairs function.
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Scots doctors to pioneer trial of stroke treatment