About this Research Topic

Background

The interest of scientific and medical communities for the interaction between high level cortical activities and visceral activities is growing in both clinical and fundamental fields. Increasingly studies focus on the interaction between the brain and the visceral system, especially between the brain and heart. Here, the brain is able to regulate autonomic activity and ultimately the activity of organs under autonomic control, such as the heart. A set of cortical and subcortical networks, the central autonomic network, seem to play a major role in these continuous autonomic cardiac adjustments. In return, cardiac activity may also be embedded in high level cortical functioning and may contribute to cognitive, emotional and sensorimotor functions. The dynamic and continuous influences of high-level regulation networks, including attentional, emotional and sensorimotor processes, interact with the influences of networks regulating physiological aspects such as respiratory or baroreflex blood pressure controls.

Recent studies highlighted this heart-brain interaction based on signal analysis methods, such as electrophysiological approaches (scalp or intracranial electroencephalography, electrocardiography, skin conductance, pupillometry and vascular controls) as well as functional and anatomical imaging; but these novelties in our understanding of this heart-brain interaction largely depend on our methods of neurophysiological exploration. Recent technological (intracranial electroencephalography and imaging) and computational (Granger causality, nonlinear approaches, heart-evoked potential, etc.) advances have led to fast accumulating evidence, supporting interest in this brain-heart interaction. A fundamental question to address now is how these physiological systems coordinate to optimize cardiac and brain functions to maintain health. Despite scientific and methodological supports for this dynamic interaction, the clinical implications are still largely unclear. This Research Topic aims to address novelties in signal processing methods (Granger causality, nonlinear approaches, heart-evoked potential, etc.) and applications of these methods in basic physiology (stress, sleep, pain, physical exercise, etc.), clinical fields or cohort (chronic diseases, intensive care unit, etc.) to facilitate the discussion between scientists from different backgrounds, from theoretical signal processing to clinical neurophysiology. By stimulating interaction with the readers of Frontiers in Network Physiology, we hope to advance our understanding of the role of this heart-brain interaction in health and chronic diseases.

This Research Topic promotes investigation of methods and approaches derived from recent advances in biomedical informatics, basic physiology or medicine in order to provide insights into physiological networks and function in health and disease. We wish to provide a forum to discuss theoretical framework, or new methods to address challenges in our understanding of interaction between high level cortical activities and visceral activities, or to promote studies underlying these network interactions for various states under both healthy and pathological conditions. For this Research Topic, we solicit reviews, systematic reviews, mini-reviews, original research articles, brief research or case reports, opinions, perspectives or general commentaries, and method papers or data reports, which address the interactions between high level cortical activity and visceral activity. Focusing on Network Physiology, this Research Topic welcomes contributions from Networks in the Cardiovascular System, Networks in Sleep and Circadian Systems, Networks in the Brain System, or System Interactions and Organ Networks.

Keywords: Heart-evoked potential, Autonomic nervous system, Heart rate variability, Granger causality, Signal processing, Network Physiology

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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