Bristol Study Finds 10 Weeks of Exercise Rewire Heart Nerves 4-to-1 Across Sides
Updated
Updated · ScienceDaily · Oct 26
Bristol Study Finds 10 Weeks of Exercise Rewire Heart Nerves 4-to-1 Across Sides
1 articles · Updated · ScienceDaily · Oct 26
Summary
University of Bristol researchers found moderate aerobic training physically reshaped stellate ganglia—the nerve clusters that regulate the heart—in rats after 10 weeks of exercise.
The asymmetry was stark: trained rats had roughly four times as many neurons in the right-side cardiovascular ganglion as the left, while left-side neurons nearly doubled in size and right-side neurons shrank slightly.
Those side-specific changes suggest exercise remodels the autonomic control system unevenly, offering a possible explanation for why some heart-targeting nerve treatments may work better on one side than the other.
The findings, published in Autonomic Neuroscience, could eventually inform more precise treatment of arrhythmias, angina and stress-induced "broken-heart" syndrome, but the work is early-stage and still needs confirmation in humans.