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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/08/050821232641.htm

Heart-failure Patients Show Brain Injury Linked To Depression

Science Daily — A UCLA imaging study revealed significant tissue loss in theregions of heart-failure patients' brains that regulate the autonomicnervous system, interfering with the cardiovascular system's ability to swiftly adapt to changes in blood pressure and heart rate. The damagelies in the same brain areas showing changes in people suffering majordepression, which may explain why many heart-failure patients are often depressed.

The brain damage could dramatically affect heart-failure patients' ability to exercise and lowers their overall quality of life. Clinically, the findings emphasize the need for (1) cardiologists to recognize that heart-failure patients suffer from a brain injury, as well as a heart injury, and (2) that drugs or other therapies must bedeveloped to cross the blood-brain barrier, prevent brain injury and boost brain function.

Authors of the study include Mary Woo, associate deanof research at the UCLA School of Nursing, and Ronald Harper, professorof neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

The research will appear in the August edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of Cardiac Failure, Vol. 11, No. 6.