London: A recent study has revealed that regular moderate aerobic exercise not only enhances heart health but also alters the structure of the nerves that control its function. Led by researchers from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, the study demonstrated for the first time that exercise affects the nerves on the right and left sides of the heart differently.
According to Qatar News Agency, the findings suggest that this asymmetry may have significant implications for treating arrhythmias, chest pain, coronary artery disease, and broken heart syndrome, by targeting the side most responsive to therapy. Assistant Professor of Animal Anatomy at the University of Bristol and supervisor of the study Dr. Augusto Coppi stated that these findings reveal an unusual pattern in the autonomic control system of the body, which regulates heart rate.
He said they found that moderate exercise alters the structure of the nerve clusters responsible for the heart differently on each side, which may explain the variation in therapeutic response. Experiments on mice showed that a 10-week training program led to a fourfold increase in the number of neurons in the cardiac nerve cluster on the right side compared to the left. Additionally, the size of neurons nearly doubled on the left side, while slightly shrinking on the right.
Dr. Coppi explained that these results could help improve treatments for arrhythmias, broken heart syndrome, and chest pain by modulating the activity of the stellate ganglion, a cluster of nerves in the neck and upper chest that controls heart rate. He emphasized that the findings are still preliminary, as the experiments were conducted on mice, and extensive clinical studies are needed before applying them to humans.
Research teams plan to investigate how these structural changes affect heart function during rest and exercise, and to search for similar patterns in larger animal models and humans using non-invasive techniques. The study was published in the journal Autonomic Neuroscience.