Brain-heart link may explain sudden death in Rett syndrome

Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - 16:30 in Health & Medicine

Poets might scoff at the notion that heart and brain are closely related, but scientists say a genetic defect that affects the brain can stop a heart. In a new study, researchers found that heart problems that occur in nearly 20 percent of children with Rett syndrome, a neurological disorder, originate because the Rett gene is lost in nerve cells -- not in heart muscle cells.

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