ABOVE: X-ray of a catheter ablation procedure, not from this study
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Injuring neurons, especially those involved in regulating a person’s heartbeat, sounds like a bad idea, but such “collateral” damage to nerve cells in the heart during catheter ablation—a common, but not fully understood, procedure used to treat atrial fibrillation—may actually lead to better outcomes, according to a study of mice and humans published on Wednesday (May 22) in Science Translational Medicine. Using a biomarker of injury to neurons and glia called S100B, the researchers find that patients with a greater increase in levels of the protein had fewer symptoms after the treatment than patients who experienced only a small rise in S100B.
“We were expecting that more neural damage would be bad for the patient,” Katharina Scherschel, a scientist at University Heart and Vascular Center UKE Hamburg and the lead author of the study, tells The Scientist, ...
