Closed-loop modeling of central and intrinsic cardiac nervous system circuits underlying cardiovascular control

Study Purpose: The primary objective of the modeling study was to evaluate the role of neural signals in controlling the dynamic behavior of the heart, particularly in regulating cardiovascular metrics such as heart rate and blood pressure. We also seek to understand neural control of respiratory sinus arrhythmia, a natural acceleration and deceleration of heart rate in synchronization with respiration, which is characteristic of good cardiovascular health.

Data Collection: Not applicable (computational study)

Primary Conclusion: Our model builds on a previously developed model of neural control of the heart. We extended this model by integrating the “little brain of the heart”, the intrinsic cardiac nervous system (ICN), to study its contributions to cardiovascular control. This newly developed model with the ICN also integrates modeling of the cardiac phase-dependent effect of parasympathetic activity on heart rate deceleration and gating of signals in the brainstem in based on respiratory phase to represent a possible mechanism of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Our expanded model can be utilized to explore the role of the ICN on beat-to-beat cardiovascular behavior, specifically RSA. Simulations can be performed to explore the regulation of cardiovascular behavior in response to changes in lung tidal volume and electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve, which connects the brain and the heart.

Curator's Notes

Experimental Design: A computational model of central and intrinsic cardiac nervous system circuits underlying cardiovascular control.

Completeness: This dataset is complete.

Subjects & Samples: This is a computational model dataset; thus no subjects are described. Experimental values were derived from Functional recordings from the pig intrinsic cardiac nervous system (ICN) dataset

Primary vs derivative data: Not applicable. This is a computational study; the primary data folder contains MATLAB simulations.

Code Availability: Code folder includes scripts to produce Figures 3-7, Table 2, and Supplementary Figure 1 of the manuscript. Each script can be run on its own in MATLAB to produce each figure. Simulations were run in MATLAB R2020b. Model equations and parameter values can be found in docs/Supplementary Files.docx.The model is also available on GitHub: https://github.com/Daniel-Baugh-Institute/CardiovascularControl/tree/main/v03.