Successful Wrap-Up of the Horizon 2020 Project NeuHeart

The final meeting of the Horizon 2020 project NeuHeart – A Neuroprosthesis to Restore the Vagal-Cardiac Closed-Loop Connection after Heart Transplantation – took place on August 29, 2023. Nearly 40 representatives of the six project partners attended the virtual meeting with European Commission officers to present the final results of the different work packages and to officially conclude the 54-month project.

The aim of NeuHeart was to develop a bioelectronic solution based on an integrated cardiac smart neuroprosthesis. The 54-month project resulted in the development of novel implants for neural regeneration, nerve activity sensing, highly selective nerve stimulation, implantable stimulators and heart monitoring sensors, as well as integrated computational models of neural interfaces and cardiovascular control.

As one of the project partners, the IT’IS team (i) developed a comprehensive pipeline that enables going from histological image data to predictions of nerve stimulation by a neural interface and of neural recordings, (ii) ported and integrated the pipeline and all models from NeuHeart partners into our o²S²PARC platform for collaborative, cloud-based computational models, simulations, and data visualization and analysis (iii) applied the pipeline to image data from the project partners to investigate, compare, and optimize multiple interface designs being considered for NeuHeart, (iv) integrated the neural interface modeling with a cardiovascular regulation model from our NeuHeart partners, (v) implemented a general purpose coupling and control framework and applied it to investigate closed-loop control strategies for the NeuHeart system, (vi) established a novel model of compound action potential (CAP) recording based on a generalization of the well-known reciprocity theorem, and (vii) validated the neural interface modelling and CAP predictions against experimental data from NeuHeart partners.

The final NeuHeart meeting provided the opportunity to appreciate the full picture of all of the activities and of the many achievements of the project, and to highlight each partner’s specific contributions and new research collaborations.

NeuHeart, although a challenging project, was a great collaboration opportunity. It was our very great pleasure to take part, and we look forward to exploring new research avenues with our partners!

For the official project website see here: www.neuhearth2020.eu