New research reveals that the heart has its own complex nervous system, or “mini-brain,” which plays a critical role in controlling its rhythm, independent of the brain.
Researchers from Karolinska Institutet and Columbia University have discovered that the heart possesses its own “mini-brain”—an independent nervous system that regulates the heartbeat. This system is far more intricate and diverse than previously understood. Gaining deeper insights into its workings could pave the way for innovative treatments for heart diseases. The study, conducted using zebrafish as a model, is detailed in Nature Communications.
The heart has long been thought to be controlled solely by the autonomic nervous system, which transmits signals from the brain. The heart’s neural network, which is embedded in the superficial layers of the heart wall, has been considered a simple structure that relays the signals from the brain. However, recent research suggests that it has a more advanced function than that.
Controlling the heartbeat
Scientists have now discovered that the heart has its own complex nervous system that is crucial to controlling its rhythm.
“This ‘little brain’ has a key role in maintaining and controlling the heartbeat, similar to how the brain regulates rhythmic functions such as locomotion and breathing,” explains Konstantinos Ampatzis, principal researcher and docent at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, who led the study.
The researchers identified several types of neurons in the heart that have different functions, including a small group of neurons with pacemaker properties. The finding challenges the current view on how the heartbeat is controlled, which may have clinical implications.
Similar to the human heart
“We were surprised to see how complex the nervous system within the heart is,” says Konstantinos Ampatzis. “Understanding this system better could lead to new insights into heart diseases and help develop new treatments for diseases such as arrhythmias.”
The study was conducted on zebrafish, an animal model that exhibits strong similarities to human heart rate and overall cardiac function. The researchers were able to map out the composition, organization, and function of neurons within the heart using a combination of methods such as single-cell RNA sequencing, anatomical studies, and electrophysiological techniques.
New therapeutic targets
“We will now continue to investigate how the heart’s brain interacts with the actual brain to regulate heart functions under different conditions such as exercise, stress, or disease,” says Konstantinos Ampatzis. “We aim to identify new therapeutic targets by examining how disruptions in the heart’s neuronal network contribute to different heart disorders.”
Reference: “Decoding the molecular, cellular, and functional heterogeneity of zebrafish intracardiac nervous system” by Andrea Pedroni, Elanur Yilmaz, Lisa Del Vecchio, Prabesh Bhattarai, Inés Talaya Vidal, Yu-Wen E. Dai, Konstantinos Koutsogiannis, Caghan Kizil and Konstantinos Ampatzis, 4 December 2024, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-54830-w
The study was done in close collaboration with researchers at Columbia University, USA, and was funded by, among others, the Dr. Margaretha Nilsson Foundation, Erik and Edith Fernström Foundation, StratNeuro and Karolinska Institutet. There are no reported conflicts of interest.
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20 Comments
I guess my heart has a mind of its own.
Very good, lol.
— So the brain in the jar, aka, Kurzwiel-esq won’t fly.
It will fly… Unless you believe that a few nerve endings there make an impact on cortical functions.
❤️
I guess one could say, “The Heart Wants What It Wants”. ❤️😁
I’ve had 3 cardiac ablations due to wolf Parkinson white syndrome and during the last one they had to shock me 3 times. Very painful, what did that do to my heart brain?
WPW syndrome is caused by abnormal conduction pathways that “short circuit” the electrical conduction of the heart. The electrical impulses that cause the heart to beat are not conducted via nerves, but via specialized heart muscle cells. The ablation procedures you underwent were attempting to sever these aberrant conduction pathways by coagulating those muscle bundles.
This procedure does no harm to the nerves.
The ablation procedure carries risks, such as inducing ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation, which requires defibrillation via a shock administered through the chest. This is very painful, and I am sorry you had to go through it.
All good fun (except the ablations), but not sure how well a zebrafish heart model translates to a human one… a few years of evolution between the 2 species…. Like a few 100,000 or million?
We were always raised with the idea that the heart was the seat of motivation/desires and that it had or at least was supposed to be train in how to react/feel the same way the mind was trained to read and how to think. That the brain was made of similar cellular material as the brain and also had to be educated.
Sorry that the heart was made of similar cellular material as the brain.
The sino-atrial node and the AtrioV entricular node have long been known to originate heart beats..out of synch and you can feel the ocasional trippy feeling in your chest
The brain merely coordinates that through the autonomic nervous system
with quantum we are about to take the first step of an exponential leap into the understanding of everything there are no superlatives to describe the changes that will change our existence
I would have thought that scientist already know this, since transplants continue beating outside of the body.
Heart in a box technology keeps the heart beating and blood flowing during transplant
The beating of the heart is regulated by the autonomous nervous system (in the sense, the speeding up or slowing down of the heart rate). However, the fundamental beating of the heart is intrinsic to the heart muscle itself. The electrical pulses that initiate each heart beat originate within specialized heart muscle cells, usually organized within the Sino-atrial node.
The reason why heart stops in brain death is because the respiration stops (which starves the heart of oxygen). Otherwise, the heart will keep on beating indefinitely (or, until it succumbs to dystrophy, without the autonomous nervous system to guide its growth and repair).
Yes
They do… Whoever wrote this article probably grossly misunderstood the research they were reading.
That’s not new my grandma told me that when I was just a kid.
Cowboy Curtis
Considering that we now know there is cellular memory, which, is based on a person’s ancestral genetics, this explains a few things in all probability.
Firstly, knowing how individuals roots are adapted to their ancestral region, and that there is cellular memory from past generations, heart transplants can absolutely change someone’s personality. It’s not a bad thing per se, but it’s something that should be discussed further and in depth.
This is not new… They’ve known it for decades if not longer. Why do you think the tool pacemakers called a pacemaker? It’s because it takes over the pacemaker’s job. If you read the research again I bet they say that they made new inroads on the discovery of the neural network but we’ve long known an existed… That’s why your heart still beats when your spinal column is severed… 🤦♀️🤦♀️ This is like when I read that article about the shocking revelation that ibuprofen can cause blood clots even though that’s been a known fact for decades. You guys need to make sure something’s actually new before you claim it’s new.