导读：心衰由多种疾病引起，心衰同时又会导致一系列疾病，其中包括情绪和心理方面。澳大利亚科学家关于“心衰会损伤大脑”的这一发现扩充了人们之前对心衰的认识。
据《印度时报》报道，《欧洲心脏杂志》刊登澳大利亚一项最新研究发现，心力衰竭（心衰）与大脑白色物质（GM）流失和认知功能受损有关联。认知功能涉及各种感知能力、思维能力、推理能力和记忆能力等。
由西澳大利亚大学科学家完成的这项跨专业研究，共涉及155名成年参试者，其中包括：64名健康者（控制组），35名心衰患者和56名缺血性心脏病患者。
新研究负责人老年精神病学教授奥斯瓦尔多·阿尔梅达博士表示，借助核磁共振成像扫描（MRI）可以检测出心衰和缺血性心脏病对大脑灰色物质的影响情况。MRI技术可以评估出大脑不同区域白色物质容量的差异。结果显示，与缺血性心脏病患者相比，心衰患者大脑中发生的变化面积更大、程度更高。
阿尔梅达博士表示，一种可能是，心衰患者对于复杂的治疗措施感到更困惑，因此，心衰治疗信息应该简单明了。这项研究结果表明，心衰还会影响到情绪变化和心理活动。医护人员和患者都需要认识到，心脏病不仅仅只与心脏有关。新研究报告还指出，抑郁症和认知损伤是心衰患者最常见的心理健康问题。
Cognitive and brain changes associated with ischaemic heart disease and heart failure
Osvaldo P. Almeida, Griselda J. Garrido, Christopher Beer, Nicola T. Lautenschlager, Leonard Arnolda and Leon Flicker
Aims It is unclear whether the cognitive dysfunctionassociated with heart failure (HF) is due to HF or comorbid conditions such as ischaemic heart disease (IHD). This study aimed to determine whether, compared with controls with and without IHD, adults with systolic HF show evidence of cognitive impairment and cerebral grey matter (GM) loss.
Methods and results Cross-sectional study of 35 participants with HF, 56 with IHD, and 64 controls without either HF or IHD. Subjects were older than 45 years and free of overt cognitive impairment. We acquired magnetic resonance images and used SPM8 to determine regional differences in cerebral GM volume. Participants with HF had lower scores than controls without IHD on immediate memory, long delay recall and digit coding, whereas those with IHD had lower long delay recall scores than controls without IHD. Compared with controls without IHD, participants with HF showed evidence of GM loss in the left cingulate, the right inferior frontal gyrus, the left middle and superior frontal gyri, the right middle temporal lobe, the right and left anterior cingulate, the right middle frontal gyrus, the inferior and pre-central frontal gyri, the right caudate, and occipital-parietal regions involving the left precuneus. The loss of GM followed a similar, less extensive, pattern when we compared participants with HF and IHD.
Conclusion Adults with HF have worse immediate and long-term memory and psychomotor speed than controls without IHD. Heart failure is associated with changes in brain regions that are important for demanding cognitive and emotional processing.
