A new 3-D map illuminates the 'little brain' within the heart

Amazing stuff! So when someone is heartless, this person is also brainless? :-) It is actually surprising and disturbing to me that this group of heart nerve cells has not previously been studied in more detail. There can be little doubt that these nerve cells might be of critical importance to the functioning of our most important muscle!

"To make their map, [researchers] imaged male and female rat hearts with a method called knife-edge scanning microscopy, creating detailed pictures of heart anatomy. Those images could then be built into a 3-D model of the heart. The scientists also plucked out individual neurons and measured the amount of gene activity within each cell."

A new 3-D map illuminates the 'little brain' within the heart | Science News Nerve cells in the organ are poorly understood

“Nerve cells (yellow) that make up a heart’s “brain” cluster around the top of this reconstructed rat heart, near where blood vessels enter and exit the organ.”