Epicardial Fat in Atrial Fibrillation: The Effect of Cardioautonomic Nervous System Function

Previous studies obviously revealed that the close relation between EAT and cardioautonomic function.4-6 Zhou et al. showed that the cardiac ganglionated plexus in the EAT integrates the autonomic innervation between the extrinsic and intrinsic cardiac autonomic nervous system and affects atrial electrophysiology and pathophysiology.4 Carnevalli et al. concluded that EAT deficiency in mice leads to an imbalance of the autonomic neural modulation of cardiac function in the sympathetic direction and to a potentially proarrhythmic remodeling of electrical and structural properties of the heart.5 Balcioglu et al. showed that sympathovagal imbalance, detected by heart rate variability and heart rate turbulence parameters, is related to EAT thickness.