{"id":396022,"date":"2026-01-29T02:00:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T02:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/396022\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T02:00:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T02:00:20","slug":"damage-from-a-heart-attack-comes-from-brain-signals-mouse-study-suggests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/396022\/","title":{"rendered":"Damage from a heart attack comes from brain signals, mouse study suggests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

Heart damage caused by a myocardial infarction is exacerbated by activation of a heart\u2013brain\u2013immune axis.Credit: Sevolod Zviryk\/Science Photo Library<\/p>\n

Researchers have proposed a rethink of the brain\u2019s role in heart attacks<\/a>, finding that crosstalk between the heart, the brain and the immune system damages the heart after a myocardial infarction in mice. The results, published in Cell on 27 January1<\/a>, suggest that such events are not just diseases of the cardiovascular system.<\/p>\n

In the study, scientists identify a brain\u2013immune circuit that exacerbates cardiovascular pathology during a heart attack. They identified neurons in the vagus nerve that relay signals between the heart and the brain, which in turn activates immune and inflammatory responses<\/a> and causes widespread damage to the heart. Blocking this pathway improved outcomes after a heart attack in mice, which could pave the way for developing new therapies. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe heart does not exist in isolation. The nervous system talks to the heart, the immune system talks to the heart,\u201c says study co-author Vineet Augustine, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego. The current work is a \u201cstep forward into putting all of these systems together and this approach can be applied to other diseases as well\u201d, he adds. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have known for decades that the brain and nervous systems are critical components to [heart attack] pathogenesis, management and care,\u201d says Cameron McAlpine who studies immune function in the cardiovascular and nervous systems at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. \u201cIt appears that this axis plays a critical role.\u201c<\/p>\n

Brain\u2013heart axis<\/p>\n

Heart attacks happen when blood flow to the heart muscle is blocked. They cause damage to the heart\u2019s muscles, and trigger cellular and molecular changes across its tissues. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe heart attack is exactly like an earthquake. You have an epicentre, which is a focal point and then it spreads out,\u201d explains Augustine. \u201cOnce it starts spreading out, this is when a large chunk of the tissue dies.\u201d <\/p>\n

Earlier research has shown that the vagus nerve \u2014 a key pathway that connects the brain to many other organs \u2014 sends signals to the brain after a heart attack. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll the regular functions of the heart are controlled by the nervous system,\u201d says Kalyanam Shivkumar, a cardiologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. <\/p>\n

These post-heart attack signals from the heart to the brain result trigger the sympathetic nervous system \u2014 the body\u2019s \u2018fight or flight\u2019 response \u2014 he explains. The increased sympathetic response then causes inflammation in the heart tissues and impairs cardiac function, which can lead to heart failure. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe root cause of the problem is signals going from the heart to the brain,\u201d says Shivkumar. But the key cells and molecular pathways that underlie these processes have remained unclear.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Found: the dial in the brain that controls the immune system<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

To investigate this, Augustine and his colleagues experimentally induced heart attacks in mice by permanently blocking an artery in their hearts.<\/p>\n

First, they aimed to trace how nerve connections between the heart and the vagus nerve change after a heart attack. They found that a group of sensory neurons in the vagus nerve that detect harmful stimuli grew new projections around the injured part of the heart. <\/p>\n

Blocking these neurons reduced the damage and inflammation in the heart\u2019s tissues and stabilized its rate and rhythm. \u201cThose neurons directly talk to the area of the heart where the injury is,\u201d says Augustine. By silencing them, \u201cyou can really quickly prevent it from expanding. And so the injury becomes extremely, extremely small\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heart damage caused by a myocardial infarction is exacerbated by activation of a heart\u2013brain\u2013immune axis.Credit: Sevolod Zviryk\/Science Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[47204,59,102,4230,16042,4231,367,90,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-396022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cardiovascular-biology","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-humanities-and-social-sciences","12":"tag-immunology","13":"tag-multidisciplinary","14":"tag-neuroscience","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}