Bruno Bonaz

Bruno Bonaz is a Professor of Gastroenterology in the Grenoble Faculty of Medicine and Hospital in France. He is a member of the team “Cerebral Stimulation & Systems Neuroscience” (team leader: Olivier David) at the Grenoble Institute of Neurosciences (GIN, INSERM U1216; https://neurosciences.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/), and was previously the team leader of the group Stress and Neurodigestive Interactions at the GIN. Prof. Bruno Bonaz work on brain-gut interactions for more than thirty years, both at the pre-clinical and clinical level, focusing on irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel diseases with a special interest on the role of stress and the autonomic nervous system in the physiopathology of such diseases. In particular, he is working on the anti-inflammatory (anti-TNF) properties of the vagus nerve (VN) through VN stimulation (VNS). We have shown that VNS has an anti-inflammatory role in a model of colitis in rats and, in a translational approach, we have recently published the first pilot study of VNS in patients with active Crohn’s disease. He really thinks that Bioelectronic Medicine, targeting the autonomic nervous system (e.g. the VN), opens new therapeutic avenues in the domain of gut inflammatory disorders and others.

Prof. Bruno Bonaz is also interested in the role of complementary medicines, such as hypnosis, which are known to increase and re-balance vagal tone through a homeostatic way. He is presently the President of the International Society of Autonomic Neuroscience (ISAN).