Frequent exercise doesn’t just strengthen the heart—it also transforms the nerves that control it, according to groundbreaking new research led by the University of Bristol.
This study, published in the journal Autonomic Neuroscience, offers promising new directions for treating a range of heart problems.
For the first time, researchers have shown that moderate aerobic exercise not only reshapes the nerves driving the heart but does so in a left-right specific pattern.
The study revealed that nerve clusters on the right side of the heart—called stellate ganglia—increase in number, while those on the left nearly double in size. These clusters act like dimmer switches, regulating the heart’s activity.
“These nerve clusters act like the heart’s dimmer switch,” said Dr. Augusto Coppi, lead author and Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Anatomy. “We’ve shown that regular, moderate exercise remodels that switch in a side-specific way. This could help explain why some treatments work better on one side than the other.”
This discovery offers a potential breakthrough in treating heart conditions like arrhythmias, angina, and broken-heart syndrome. By understanding the left–right differences in heart nerve structures, doctors may one day tailor nerve-targeting procedures—such as stellate ganglia nerve blocks—more effectively and precisely.
The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from UCL and two Brazilian institutions. Using advanced 3D imaging techniques in trained rats, the team tracked nerve changes over 10 weeks. Now, they plan to test how these structural differences affect heart function and whether similar patterns appear in larger animals and humans.
“Understanding these left-right differences could help us personalize treatments for heart rhythm disorders and angina,” Dr. Coppi added. “Our next step is to test how these structural changes map onto function.”
The study is published in Autonomic Neuroscience.
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