Study: Brain’s Reward System Could Help Heart Attack Recovery  

Researchers at the Technion – Israel Institute of technology in Haifa have shown that boosting a person’s mental state could help them recover from a heart attack. 

The researchers focused on the reward system – a network in the brain that is activated when a person is motivated or in a positive emotional state – in order to ascertain its impact on recovery from a heart attack, formally known as an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). 

They found that activating this system in mice led to better clinical outcomes and reduced scarring of the heart tissue. And while the science behind the link between the brain and the heart is still undefined, the Technion said the study raises hopes of improved treatment for heart disease.  

The study was led by PhD student Hedva Haykin at the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, under the supervision of psychoneuroimmunologist Prof. Asya Rolls and world-renowned cardiologist Prof. Lior Gepstein. 

Haykin recently received the Israel Heart Society’s J.J. Kellerman Young Investigator Award for 2024.

The research was carried out with the support of the European Research Council, the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes, the Wellcome Trust, Israel Science Foundation, and the Adelson Medical Research Foundation. 

The findings were recently published in the Nature Cardiovascular Research journal.