Research Highlights

Using a porcine model of cardiogenic shock, Lamberti and colleagues develop a clinically accessible, patient-validated metric to assess pulmonary vascular compliance that can predict tolerance to left-sided ventricular assist device support.

Heartbeat-induced pressure pulsations within arterial vessels in the brain can directly stimulate central neuronal activity by activating mechanosensitive channels in subsets of neurons, according to a study published in Science.

Two studies indicate that a reduction in body mass index as a result of either bariatric surgery or pharmacological therapy is associated with a blood pressure-lowering effect.

A study shows that congenital heart defects in Down syndrome are in part caused by increased dosage of the DYRK1A gene, which lies on chromosome 21, leading to reduced proliferation and mitochondrial dysfunction in cardiomyocytes.

Anti-inflammatory therapy involving IL-1β inhibition might reduce the risk of cardiovascular events in individuals with clonal haematopoiesis by increasing the number of fibroblast-like cells in the fibrous cap region of atherosclerotic plaques, thereby stabilizing the plaque and reducing the likelihood of rupture.

During myocardial infarction, haematopoietic stem and progenitor cells increase fatty acid oxidation, and bone marrow adipocytes can act as a local energy resource for these cells.

A method named photoacoustic vector tomography now enables the quantification of haemodynamics in veins at depths of more than 5 mm below the skin surface, outperforming current pure optical modalities for deep haemodynamic imaging.

In aged mice, but not young mice, with atherosclerosis, depletion of CD8⁺ T cells significantly reduces atherosclerotic lesion size and necrotic core area.

The use of intravenous levothyroxine does not increase the likelihood of hearts being transplanted from haemodynamically unstable, brain-dead potential donors, suggesting that current practice recommendations should be revised.

Gene therapy involving adenine base editing can correct a pathogenic variant in the Scn5a gene and alleviate arrhythmia phenotypes in a mouse model of long QT syndrome type 3.

Aster proteins are involved in the non-vesicular transport of cholesterol derived from dietary lipids in the small intestine from the plasma membrane to the endoplasmic reticulum in enterocytes.

In the ORBITA-2 trial, percutaneous coronary intervention was associated with a lower angina symptom score compared with a placebo procedure in patients with stable angina who were receiving minimal or no antianginal medication.

In patients with severe calcified aortic valve stenosis, treatment with transthoracically delivered non-invasive ultrasound is safe and improves valve function.

A liberal strategy of blood transfusion might improve outcomes in patients with acute myocardial infarction and anaemia, according to results from the MINT trial.

Treatment with the glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist semaglutide, administered subcutaneously at a dose of 2.4 mg once per week, reduces the risk of major cardiovascular events by 20% compared with placebo in patients who are overweight or obese and with pre-existing cardiovascular disease but without diabetes mellitus, according to findings from the SELECT trial.

In women with elevated levels of blood pressure during pregnancy, the use of a physician-guided remote telemonitoring programme during the postpartum period improves BP control, according to findings from the POP-HT trial.

Data from the ARIES-HM3 trial show that excluding aspirin from the antithrombotic regimen in patients with advanced heart failure and a left ventricular assist device reduces the number of bleeding events and does not increase the risk of thromboembolism.

Activation of a specific set of vagal sensory neurons connecting the ventricular wall of the heart to the area postrema in the brainstem causes mice to faint. This finding defines a cardiac reflex that recapitulates characteristics of human syncope.

Two new studies using cryo-electron microscopy describe the structure and conformation of myosin in the cardiac thick filaments and how it interacts with other thick-filament proteins, such as titin and cardiac myosin-binding protein C, in mammalian hearts.

An approach that increases the expression of the chemokine receptor CXCR4 in vascular cells by targeting a microRNA-based repressive pathway attenuates atherosclerosis in mice and promotes atheroprotective functions in human and mouse vascular cells in vitro.