Cardiac neurostimulation
Fig. 1: Principle of Cardiac neurostimulation
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Project description
The resting heart rate is individually varying and depends on factors as age and physical constitution. Healthy men have a resting heart rate of about 60 – 80 bpm (beats per minute). The autonomous nervous system with its subcomponents sympathetic and parasympathetic system modulates the heart rate. Thereby, the parasympathetic nervous system reduces the cardiac frequency in the same way as the sympathetic nervous system increases it. Increasing heart rates result in an increased risk of diseases of the cardiovascular system and may for instance induce heart insufficiency. Thus, the dynamic decrease of the heart rate is of a particular interest for patients with pre-existing diseases.
Pharmacological approaches to lower the heart rate make use of the autonomous regulation of the sinu-atrial node or the control of membrane currents. Thereby, ß-blockers are often used, which have a major disadvantage of a non-existing selectivity of the sinu-atrial node. Therefore, the reduction of the sinu-atrial rate is dynamically not possible and pharmacologically limited to less than 10 – 20 bpm.
Project goals
The aim of the DFG research project „cardiac neuromodulation“ is to develop a “vice versa” pacemaker, which can be used instead of a ß-blocker. Here, a selective increase of the parasympathetic nervous system by means of an innervation of the sinu-atrial node will be realized by a neurostimulation system to achieve a dynamic decrease of the heart rate.