The heart and brain are vital co-dependent organs and communication between them is essential to health. We study the immune and neural connectivity that links the heart and brain in cardiovascular and neurological pathologies. Using mouse models and human trials, we study how lifestyle factors, like sleep and exercise, modulate these interactions. The McAlpine lab is highly multidisciplinary and incorporates innovative tools and approaches at the interface of immunology, cardiology, and neuroscience to study the fundamental impact neuro-immune interactions and brain-body communication in heart and brain diseases.
We are an interdisciplinary research team located in the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
We are also active members of many other institutes and centers at ISMMS, including the Friedman Brain Institute, the Lipschultz Immunology Institute, the Loeb Center for Alzheimer’s Disease, and the Brain and Body Research Center.
“Every affection of the mind that is attendant with either pain or pleasure, hope or fear, is the cause of an agitation whose influence extends to the heart” – Dr. William Harvey