What if the heart and the brain were not considered as two separate organs, but as parts of a single, continuously interacting network?
This is the starting point of a new ESC CardioTalk episode “The heart-brain axis: a single network - introducing/decoding the Dorian Gray Project”. The episode features Riccardo Proietti from the University of Liverpool, Scientific Coordinator of DORIAN GRAY, and Matthias Endres from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, a DORIAN GRAY partner and expert in stroke and brain-heart interactions.
The conversation explores the heart-brain axis and questions the traditional view of cardiovascular and neurological diseases as separate conditions. Instead, the speakers discuss the heart and brain as an interconnected biological network, communicating continuously through multiple pathways and influencing health and disease in both directions. The episode then turns to DORIAN GRAY and how the project is working to translate this growing understanding of heart-brain interactions into new approaches for prevention and care.
DORIAN GRAY investigates the links between cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline, combining clinical research with digital technologies to identify people at risk earlier and support more personalised interventions. Proietti and Endres discuss how the project brings together cardiovascular, cognitive, imaging, biomarker and behavioural data, collected through clinical assessments and wearable technologies, to better understand individual heart–brain trajectories and adapt interventions to individual needs.
The discussion also explores the role of physical exercise in this process, highlighting the possibility that its effects on cognition may extend beyond improvements in cardiac function and may involve the restoration of communication between the heart and the brain.
You can listen the podcast here: https://esc365.escardio.org/event/2856
