Autonomic nervous system activity is an important component of human emotion. Mental processes influence bodily physiology, which in turn feeds back to influence thoughts and feelings. Afferent cardiovascular signals from arterial baroreceptors in the carotid sinuses are processed within the brain and contribute to this two-way communication with the body. These carotid baroreceptors can be stimulated non-invasively by externally applying focal negative pressure bilaterally to the neck. In an experiment combining functional neuroimaging (fMRI) with carotid stimulation in healthy participants, we tested the hypothesis that manipulating afferent cardiovascular signals alters the central processing of emotional information (fearful and neutral facial expressions). Carotid stimulation, compared with sham stimulation, broadly attenuated activity across cortical and brainstem regions. Modulation of emotional processing was apparent as a significant expression-by-stimulation interaction within left amygdala, where responses during appraisal of fearful faces were selectively reduced by carotid stimulation. Moreover, activity reductions within insula, amygdala, and hippocampus correlated with the degree of stimulation-evoked change in the explicit emotional ratings of fearful faces. Across participants, individual differences in autonomic state (heart rate variability, a proxy measure of autonomic balance toward parasympathetic activity) predicted the extent to which carotid stimulation influenced neural (amygdala) responses during appraisal and subjective rating of fearful faces. Together our results provide mechanistic insight into the visceral component of emotion by identifying the neural substrates mediating cardiovascular influences on the processing of fear signals, potentially implicating central baroreflex mechanisms for anxiolytic treatment targets.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/npp.2015.10 | DOI Listing |
Cureus
January 2025
Clinical Pharmacy and Neurology, King Saud Medical City, Riyadh, SAU.
First bite syndrome (FBS) is characterized by intense pain in the parotid area that starts with the first bite of food spontaneously. FBS is an uncommonly observed surgical complication of head and neck surgery. A 36-year-old male patient reported extreme pain after surgical excision of a carotid body tumor (CBT) in the ipsilateral parotid gland region at the first bite of each food intake, which improves gradually with continued mastication.
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December 2024
Department of Vascular Surgery, Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital Clinical College of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
Objective: To develop and validate a new prediction model based on the Lass-logistic regression with inflammatory serologic markers for the assessment of carotid plaque stability, providing clinicians with a reliable tool for risk stratification and decision-making in the management of carotid artery disease.
Methods: In this study, we retrospectively collected the data of the patients who underwent carotid endarterectomy (CEA) from 2019 to 2023 in Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital. Demographic characteristics, vascular risk factors, and the results of preoperative serum biochemistry were measured and collected.
J Sleep Res
December 2024
Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular y Fisiología, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common sleep disorder that is associated with a wide variety of health conditions, including cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, metabolic, neoplastic, and neurocognitive manifestations. OSA, as a chronic condition, is mainly characterised by repeated upper airway obstructions during sleep that cause episodes of intermittent hypoxia (IH), resulting in tissue hypoxia-reoxygenation cycles. Decreased arterial oxygen pressure (PaO) and haemoglobin saturation (SatO) stimulate reflex responses to overcome the obstruction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Cell Mol Med
December 2024
Cyrus Tang Medical Institute, Soochow University, Suzhou, China.
Epigenetic modifications play an important role in disturbed flow (d-flow) induced atherosclerotic plaque formation. By analysing a scRNA-seq dataset of the left carotid artery (LCA) under d-flow conditions, we found that Jarid1b (KDM5B) was upregulated primarily in a subcluster of endothelial cells in response to d-flow stimulation. We therefore investigated the mechanism of KDM5B expression and the role of KDM5B in endothelial cell.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCureus
November 2024
Research and Development, Enalare Therapeutics, Princeton, USA.
Xylazine exacerbates the respiratory depression induced by fentanyl. Because xylazine is a non-opioid, it is resistant to reversal by opioid receptor antagonists such as naloxone (e.g.
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