The Brain–Heart Connection

N eurocardiology has many dimensions, but it may be conceptualized as divided into 3 major categories: the heart's effects on the brain (eg, cardiac source embolic stroke), the brain's effects on the heart (eg, neurogenic heart disease), and neurocardiac syndromes (eg, Friedreich disease).The present review deals with the nervous system's capacity to injure the heart.This subject is inherently important but also represents an example of a much more widespread and conceptually fascinating area of neurovisceral damage in general. History of Learning the Nature of the Brain-Heart ConnectionIn 1942, at the culmination of his distinguished career as Professor of Physiology at Harvard Medical School, Walter B.…