The Journal of Cardiac Failure is not usually high on my list of neuroscience sources, but a recent Letter to the Editor raises a very Neuroskeptic-al point: Heart Failure - An Identified but Largely Ignored Source of Errors in Postmortem Brain Volume Studies
German researchers Hans-Gert Bernstein and colleagues write:
We read with great interest the recently published article by Pan et al. about their experience in detecting injury to brain sites in patients with heart failure by MRI...
These new results confirm and extend previous observations that cardiac failure seriously affects brain structure volumes. In most areas, volume shrinkage takes place. In some brain regions, however, “distension” has been found... Unfortunately, the well documented and replicated influence of heart failure on the outcome of brain volume measurements is largely ignored in postmortem brain studies. Presumably, the chronic lack of blood flow to the brain caused by cardiac failure is ...
