Brain Images Link Strokes to Heart Damage :
[Abstract - National Institutes of Health]
"Ischemic strokes in two specific area of the brain appear to send shockwaves through the sympathetic nervous system to cause myocardial injury. Magnetic resonance imaging studies of patients who had new evidence of myocardial damage following an ischemic stroke indicated that infarctions occurring in the right insula and right inferior parietal lobule regions of the brain might be to blame, researchers here reported in an early online release in Neurology.

'The link between the brain and the heart in stroke patients is fascinating,' said A. Gregory Sorensen, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital. 'For instance, most patients with acute stroke have elevated blood pressure that returns to baseline over three to seven days. The connection is believed to be through the autonomic nervous system, but what the mechanism is has been unclear...."