Locating single neurons that monitor and regulate the heart and lungs

(© Image: Depositphotos) EPFL neuroscientists have located single neurons in a deep structure of the brain that regulates the heart and the lungs, a first detection in humans. The results shed light on how the brain-body system self-regulates both vital bio-rhythms. The body self-regulates in a process known as homeostasis, and the brain is responsible for this as it is constantly monitoring all'of the body's vital signals. If you need more oxygen, for example, then a message is sent to the brain that then tells the body to adjust your breathing and your heart rate. But the neurons involved in regulating breathing and cardiac rhythm had never been directly observed, until now, thanks to brain recording technology during brain surgery. EPFL neuroscientists, in a collaboration with surgeons and neuroscientists at West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, show that single neurons deep in the human brain, in two thalamic nuclei and the subthalamic nucleus, encode vital physiological signals from the heart and lungs, providing the first direct evidence of this in humans. The results are published in PNAS.