Vaseghi Research Lab

The Vaseghi Lab

  • In-vivo electroanatomic map of a chronically infarcted porcine heart. More info in accordion.
  • In-vivo neural recordings and stained tissue from the porcine nodose ganglion. More info in accordion.
  • Tissue clearing and histology of the porcine spinal cord. More info in accordion.
  • t-SNE plot from single cell RNA sequencing of mouse nodose (vagal) ganglia showing heterogeneity of resident cell populations. More info in accordion.
  • Porcine ventricular myocardium and dorsal root ganglion stained for various peptides and receptors. More info in accordion.
  • The Vaseghi lab members.

Bipolar EGMs

In-vivo electroanatomic map of a chronically infarcted porcine heart displaying evidence of low voltage and fractionated bipolar electrograms.

Nodose Ganglion

Left: In-vivo neural recordings from the porcine nodose (vagal) ganglion to assess changes in parasympathetic afferent transduction after myocardial infarction. Right: Histological evaluation of porcine nodose ganglion to assess diversity of neurons and changes in neuronal subpopulation with cardiovascular disease.

Spinal Cord

Tissue clearing and histology of a porcine spinal cord.

t-SNE Projection of Cells

t-SNE plot from single cell RNA sequencing of mouse nodose (vagal) ganglia showing heterogeneity of resident cell populations.

Stained Tissues

Left: Porcine ventricular myocardium stained for DAPI (cell nuclei), neuropeptide Y (NPY), NPY1-Receptor, and wheat germ agglutinin (WGA; plasma membranes). Right: Histology of dorsal root ganglion showing activation (cFos+) of pain sensory neurons (CGRP+) in the high thoracic spinal cord region, which provides innervation for the heart.

Researching Cardiac Autonomic Control of Heart Disease

Heart disease causes scar formation in the heart and pathological changes in the cardiac autonomic nervous system, which predispose to abnormal heart rhythms, including atrial and ventricular arrhythmias, and heart failure. The Vaseghi lab focuses on identifying the mechanisms and triggers for this neural remodeling and finding ways to prevent arrhythmias and reduce progression of heart failure by exploring a variety of neuromodulatory approaches.

 

Announcements

Tools and Techniques

  • In-vivo Neural Recording of Peripheral Autonomic Ganglia
  • Fast-Scanning Cyclic Voltammetryfor Neurotransmitter Measurements
  • Capacitive Immunoprobes for Neuropeptide Measurements
  • High-resolution In-vivo Cardiac Electrophysiological Recordings and Mapping
  • Optogenetics to Determine Role of Specific Neuronal Pathways
  • Viral Tracing, Tissue Clearing, Immuno-histochemistry, Western Blotting, ELISA to Understand Tissue Innervation and Protein Expression
  • Confocal and High-Resolution Microscopy
  • Single Cell RNA-Sequencing
Tools & Techniques

Announcements

  • 3 abstracts accepted for presentation at AHA Scientific Sessions 2024
  • New paper called "Antiarrhythmic Mechanisms of Epidural Blockade After Myocardial Infarction" is published in Circulation Research
  • New paper called "Myocardial infarction causes sex-dependent dysfunction in vagal sensory glutamatergic neurotransmission that is mitigated by 17β-estradiol" is published in JCI Insight
  • Dr. Valerie van Weperen wins Heart Rhythm Society's Young Investigator Award!
  • New paper called ‘Circulating norepinephrine leads to the release of neuropeptide Y from cardiac sympathetic nerve terminals via activation of beta-adrenergic receptors’ is now published in The Journal of Physiology
  • 2 Abstracts accepted for Heart Rhythm Society Scientific Sessions 2024
Marmar Vaseghi

Meet the PI

Dr. Vaseghi is a cardiologist, clinical cardiac electrophysiologist, and Director of Clinical and Translational Research at the UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center. She obtained her MD from Stanford University and her PhD in Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology at UCLA. She is the principle investigator and co-investigator of several National Institute of Health funded studies evaluating the role of autonomic nervous system in heart rhythm disorders and the development and role of new neuromodulatory therapies as well as catheter ablation techniques to treat arrhythmias. She is the recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award. Her laboratory’s breadth of work ranges from small and large animal models to human mechanistic studies to study cardiac autonomic innervation.