The brain-heart syndrome: remarks on early ecgraphic changes following focal cerebral ischemia in healthy and in experimentally hyperdyslipidemic rabbits.

Early cardiac effects of focal cerebral ischemia in two groups of rabbit, one of which made hyperdyslipidemic with an atherogenic diet, were detected in several experiments. In the group of 62 animals fed on a standard diet, primary CVT alterations and arrhythmias occurred in 4 rabbits (6.4%), in the group of 15 animals fed on an atherogenic diet the same cardiac alterations occurred in 6 rabbits (40%). A marked statistically significant prevalence of ECGraphic changes was observed in hyperdyslipidemic group. These results and the data coming out of other experiments and literature suggest that the pathogenesis of the "cerebro-cardiac syndrome" is linked to several biohumoral alterations occurring after the stroke. If these events affect functionally damaged endothelia, or occur in the presence of atherosclerotic plaques, cardiac alterations occurring after the stroke are greater than cardiac alterations observed in the same condition when coronary are intact or little damaged.