Do Heart Rate Induce Emotions Like Anxiety?

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It's been hard to test directly whether heart rate can induce emotions like anxiety. Many of the methods to modulate a heart beats per minute can be non-specific and affects other parts of the body, making it difficult to pinpoint if heart rate itself is playing a direct role on emotional state. But this week Karl and his colleagues have shown a way to do just that in mice by using an optical pacemaker. This activation could happen from outside the body so no surgery or other invasive technique was required. It turned out it did but with a twist.

00:47 How a racing heart could trigger anxiety

Anxiety can make the heart beat faster, but could the reverse be true as well? That question has been much debated, but hard to test. Now, a team has shown that artificially increasing a mouse’s heart rate can induce anxiety-like behaviours, and identified an area in the brain that appears to be a key mediator of this response. They hope that this knowledge could help to improve therapies for treating anxiety-related conditions in the future.

Research article: Hsueh et al.

News & Views: How an anxious heart talks to the brain

08:32 Research Highlights

The chance discovery of the smallest rock seen so far in the Solar System, and the first brain recording from a freely swimming octopus.

Research Highlight: Asteroid photobombs JWST practice shots

Research Highlight: How to measure the brain of an octopus

10:57 How NASA’s DART mission beat expectiations

In September 2022, NASA’s DART spacecraft smashed into a space rock known as Dimorphos, which orbits a near-Earth asteroid. The aim of the mission was to test whether asteroids could be redirected as a method to protect Earth against future impacts. This week, multiple papers have been published describing what researchers have learnt about the impact and its aftermath. Reporter Alex Witze joined us to round up the findings.

News: Asteroid lost 1 million kilograms after collision with DART spacecraft

Research article: Thomas et al.

Research article: Daly et al.

Research article: Li et al.

Research article: Cheng et al.

Research article: Graykowski et al.

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