PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Nil Z. Gurel
AU  - Koustubh B. Sudarshan
AU  - Joseph Hadaya
AU  - Alex Karavos
AU  - Taro Temma
AU  - Yuichi Hori
AU  - J. Andrew Armour
AU  - Guy Kember
AU  - Olujimi A. Ajijola
TI  - Metrics of High Cofluctuation and Entropy to Describe Control of Cardiac Function in the Stellate Ganglion
AID  - 10.1101/2021.09.28.462183
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.09.28.462183
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/09/30/2021.09.28.462183.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/09/30/2021.09.28.462183.full
AB  - Neural control of the heart involves dynamic adaptation of mechanical and electrical indices to meet blood flow demands. The control system receives centrally-derived inputs to coordinate cardiac function on a beat-by-beat basis, producing “functional” outputs such as the blood pressure waveform. Bilateral stellate ganglia (SG) are responsible for integration of multiple inputs and efferent cardiopulmonary sympathetic neurotransmission. In this work, we investigate network processing of cardiopulmonary transduction by SG neuronal populations in porcine with chronic pacing-induced heart failure and control subjects. We derive novel metrics to describe control of cardiac function by the SG during baseline and stressed states from in vivo extracellular microelectrode recordings. Network-level spatiotemporal dynamic signatures are found by quantifying state changes in coactive neuronal populations (i.e., cofluctuations). Differences in “neural specificity” of SG network activity to specific phases of the cardiac cycle are studied using entropy estimation. Fundamental differences in information processing and cardiac control are evident in chronic heart failure where the SG exhibits: i) short-lived, high amplitude cofluctuations in baseline states, ii) greater variation in neural specificity to cardiac cycles, iii) limited sympathetic reserve during stressed states, and iv) neural network activity and cardiac control linkage that depends on disease state and cofluctuation magnitude. These findings indicate that spatiotemporal dynamics of stellate ganglion neuronal populations are altered in heart failure, and lay the groundwork for understanding dysfunction neuronal signaling reflective of cardiac sympathoexcitation.Competing Interest StatementUniversity of California, Los Angeles has patents relating to cardiac neural diagnostics and therapeutics. Dr. Ajijola is a co-founder of NeuCures, Inc. The remaining authors have no additional disclosures to report.