According to a recent article by Cardiovascular Business (CVB), a new study published by the Journal of American College of Cardiology demonstrated that whole-body molecular imaging can identify a shared inflammatory response between the cardiovascular and central nervous systems following myocardial infarction (MI).

The study has the potential to strengthen the speculated connection between cardiac injury and cognitive decline, according to the article.  

“TSPO-targeted whole-body molecular imaging identifies inflammation as a crucial connection between the brain and heart after cardiac injury,” said lead author James T. Thackeray, PhD, from the Hannover Medical School in Germany. “Acute MI leads to an early inflammatory response, which stimulates adverse left ventricular remodeling and triggers brain microglia activation in a biphasic pattern. A systems-based, multiorgan molecular imaging strategy may assist in the development of targeted anti-inflammatory therapies that may benefit both systems by providing risk assessment, identifying therapeutic target expression, and monitoring intervention effectiveness.” 

Thackeray and colleagues induced MI in 43 mice and comparing them to a control group whom all underwent a whole-body PET. What they found was that the mitochondrial translocator protein (TSPO) signals in the brain and myocardium were elevated just one week after infarction compared with the control group, according to CVB.  

Additionally, after a sharp decline in TSPO thereafter, a second wave of inflammation occurred at four weeks when the mice developed progressive heart failure. 

“Whole-body TSPO PET imaging allowed concurrent detection of inflammatory changes in multiple organs (heart, spleen, bone marrow, brain and kidney) and allowed serial evaluation for temporal changes,” said Y. Chandrashekhar, MD, and Jagat Narula, MD, PhD in an editorial accompanying the study. “One could presumably detect and serially follow vascular inflammation that can portend adverse outcome, possibly with whole-body TSPO PET in high-risk coronary artery disease patients. Such studies will allow us to understand the intricate interplay between interconnected pathological circuits such as heart–brain, gut–brain, or chronic infection (such as HIV)–brain interactions.” 

For more information and the entire CVB article, see below.