心碎综合症与癌症、大脑对压力的反应有关

心碎综合症与癌症、大脑对压力的反应有关

“Broken heart” syndrome, a disease that causes the heart to temporarily weaken, has been linked to the brain’s reaction to stress, a 2019 study has found.

2019年的一项研究发现，导致心脏暂时变弱的“心碎”综合症与大脑对压力的反应有关。

In an article published in the European Heart Journal in March, Swiss researchers said they found a connection between the way the brain communicates with the heart and broken heart syndrome, also called takotsubo syndrome (TTS).

瑞士研究人员在3月份发表于《欧洲心脏杂志》(European Heart Journal)的一篇文章中说，他们发现大脑与心脏沟通的方式与心碎综合症(也称takotsubo综合征)之间存在联系。

Caused by intense emotional events, TTS is a rare, temporary condition that weakens the left ventricle and disrupts its normal pumping function.

由强烈的情绪事件引起的TTS是一种罕见的暂时性疾病，它会削弱左心室并破坏其正常的泵血功能。

For their research, Swiss neuroscientists and cardiologists conducted MRI brain scans on 15 TTS patients — on average, about a year after their diagnosis — and compared them to scans of 39 healthy people.

在他们的研究中，瑞士的神经科学家和心脏病学家对15名TTS患者进行了MRI脑部扫描——平均大约是在他们确诊后一年——并将他们与39名健康人的脑部扫描进行了比较。

They specifically looked at four brain regions that control emotions, motivation, learning and memory and share information with each other. Two of the regions they analyzed, the amygdala and cingulate gyrus, help control the autonomic nervous system and heart function.

他们专门研究了大脑中控制情绪、动机、学习和记忆以及相互分享信息的四个区域。他们分析的两个区域，杏仁核和扣带回，帮助控制自主神经系统和心脏功能。

In their analysis of the scans, researchers were able to correlate the function of those regions with TTS.

在对扫描结果的分析中，研究人员能够将这些区域的功能与TTS联系起来。

“We found that TTS patients had decreased communication between brain regions associated with emotional processing and the autonomic nervous system, which controls the unconscious workings of the body, compared to the healthy people,” Christian Templin, research author and professor of cardiology at University Hospital Zurich said in a statement.

研究作者、苏黎世大学医院心脏病学教授克里斯蒂安•坦普林在一份声明中说:“我们发现，与健康人相比，接受TTS治疗的患者与情绪处理相关的大脑区域和控制身体潜意识活动的自主神经系统之间的交流减少。”

“For the first time, we have identified a correlation between alterations to the functional activity of specific brain regions and TTS, which strongly supports the idea that the brain is involved in the underlying mechanism of TTS. Emotional and physical stress are strongly associated with TTS and it has been hypothesized that the overstimulation of the autonomic nervous system may lead to TTS events,” Templin added.

“我们首次发现了大脑特定区域功能活动的改变与TTS之间的相关性，这有力地支持了大脑参与了TTS潜在机制的观点。”情绪和身体上的压力与TTS密切相关，有人推测，自主神经系统的过度刺激可能导致TTS事件。”Templin补充道。

However, researchers were unable to determine if the decrease in communication between the brain and the heart was the cause of TTS or vice versa because they didn’t have MRI scans of the TTS patients’ brains at the time they developed the condition.

然而，研究人员无法确定是大脑和心脏之间的交流减少导致了TTS，还是相反，因为他们没有对TTS患者发病时的大脑进行MRI扫描。

“Our results suggest that additional studies should be conducted to determine whether this is a causal relationship,” Dr. Jelena Ghadri, a senior research associate at the University Hospital Zurich and co-author of the study said.

“我们的研究结果表明，应该进行更多的研究，以确定这是否是一种因果关系。”苏黎世大学医院(University Hospital Zurich)的高级研究员、该研究的合著者耶莱娜·加德里(Jelena Ghadri)博士说。

“We hope this study offers new starting points for studying TTS in terms of understanding that it much more than ‘broken heart’ syndrome and clearly involves interactions between the brain and the heart, which are still not fully understood,” Ghadri continued.

Ghadri继续说:“我们希望这项研究为TTS的研究提供了新的起点，它不仅仅是‘心碎’综合症，而且显然涉及到大脑和心脏之间的相互作用，这一点我们还没有完全了解。”