Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2016 May 13; 374(2067): 20160020. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2016.0020
A recent article in Scientific American (‘A new idea for treating Alzheimer's’)begins with the following sentence: ‘If it's good for the heart, it could also be good for the neurons, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, cells that make up the main items on the brain's parts list’, suggesting that Alzheimer's disease may be a candidate for combined brain–heart therapeutic approaches. Furthermore, a wide variety of changes in the electrocardiogram, mainly referring to arrhythmias and repolarization, is often observed in the context of neurological disease.
A significant part of the current knowledge on brain–heart interaction as applied to the medical field refers to ‘neurocardiology’. While this discipline is inherently multidimensional, it may be conceptualized as divided into three major categories: the heart's effects on the brain (e.g. cardiac source embolic stroke), the brain's effects on the heart (e.g. neurogenic heart disease) and neurocardiac syndromes (e.g. Friedreich's ataxia).
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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Monday, May 30, 2016
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