Vineet Augustine, Ph.D.

Research

My lab will explore how the heart communicates with the brain and the immune system following a heart attack. Heart attacks, or myocardial infarctions (MIs), are typically treated as purely a disease of the heart. Yet the heart does not operate in isolation: its function is regulated by the brain, and its reconstruction after an MI is orchestrated by the immune system. My lab also recently demonstrated that fainting, a condition that had also been regarded as purely cardiological, actually stems from nervous system dysfunction. That finding offered a new perspective on how the heart and brain form a sensory circuit that influences physiology. Now, using advanced techniques in neuroscience, physiology, RNA sequencing, and computational analysis, we will characterize the signals that the heart produces to inform the brain that an MI has occurred, and we will assess how this “cardiosensory” communication can produce an inflammatory response that derails healing and leads to scarring. With preliminary data revealing that eliminating activity of a particular tract within the vagus nerve reduces inflammation and improves cardiac function, our work could lead to new approaches to preventing or treating heart attacks.