AsianScientist (Feb. 7, 2012) – Patients with heart failure have been found with worse memory function and reaction speeds compared to healthy subjects, a study conducted by the Western Australia Center for Health and Aging has reported.
The cross-sectional study, published in the European Heart Journal, is the first to show that a decline in cognitive function could be a result of a deteriorating heart condition, by comparing heart failure (HF) and ischemic heart disease (IHD) patients with healthy subjects.
Led by a group from the University of Western Australia, the researchers conducted cognitive tests on 35 patients with HF, 56 patients with IHD, and 64 healthy individuals without HF or IHD.
Using a technique called magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers compared the brain scans of HF and IHD patients. Both sets of patients displayed a loss of grey matter in brain regions which are responsible for human emotion, memory, and reasoning, with HF patients exhibiting more extensive brain damage than IHD patients.
“Our findings indicate that diseases that affect the heart affect the brain as well, and that the changes in organ function and blood circulation associated with HF seem to compound these effects in the brain,” said Professor Osvaldo Almeida of the Western Australia Center for Health and Aging in Perth.
“Health professionals and patients need to be aware that problems caused by heart disease are not limited to the heart,” he cautioned.
The group aims to expand the scale and duration of their study to identify key mechanisms that characterize how HF contributes to brain damage and declining cognitive performance.
Other future directions for the group also include examining whether brain performance deteriorates further with increasing brain damage overtime, and whether cognitive rehabilitation treatment would improve the mental performance of HF patients.
The article can be found at: Almeida OP et al. (2012) Cognitive and brain changes associated with ischaemic heart disease and heart failure.
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Source: European Society of Cardiology.
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