Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.

(Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1669).

For a very long time, the connection between the heart and the brain was understood to be a master-servant relationship in which the brain would give orders to the heart and the latter would simply respond as directed. Recently, however, a deeper heart-brain connection has been recognized, relating cardiac events to emotional stress and even vice-versa. Indeed, in the last decades, emotional stress has been highlighted as a key risk factor for heart attacks. A recently discovered cardiac disease, the Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as the Broken Heart Syndrome, is a perfect example of this heart-brain connection. It is defined as reversible ventricular dysfunction in the absence of coronary artery disease. One-third of affected patients cited sudden and clear emotional stress¹. It is proposed that emotional stress leads to the activation of the sympathetic nervous system by the amygdala, stimulating the production of pro-inflammatory cells that may trigger heart attack, stroke, or sudden death².

Sending you and your loved ones good cheer and best wishes for Valentine’s Day!

¹Ghadri JR, et al: Long-Term Prognosis of Patients with Takotsubo Syndrome. J Am Coll Cardiol 2018 Aug 21;72(8):874-882.

²Miller M: Emotional Rescue: The Heart-Brain Connection. Cerebrum 2019 May 1;2019:cer-05-19.

HE&S, Original magnification: x20, Scale bar: 50 µm

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