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. 2025 Sep;52(11):4224-4232.
doi: 10.1007/s00259-025-07266-3. Epub 2025 Apr 14.

Relation between resting amygdala activity and cardiovascular events in patients with cardiac sarcoidosis

Sou Otsuki #  1 , Masahiro Hatakeyama #  2 , Atsushi Michael Kimura  2 , Kosei Nakamura  2 , Mikhail Ratanov  2 , Rie Akagawa  3 , Hironori Furuse  3 , Naomasa Suzuki  3 , Yasuhiro Ikami  3 , Yuki Hasegawa  3 , Masaomi Chinushi  4 , Hitoshi Shimada  5 , Takayuki Inomata  3
Affiliations

Relation between resting amygdala activity and cardiovascular events in patients with cardiac sarcoidosis

Sou Otsuki et al. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2025 Sep.

Abstract

Purpose: Previous studies indicate amygdala activity (AmygA) measured by FDG-positron emission tomography (PET) predicts the risk of subsequent cardiovascular events. However, AmygA measurement use for predicting the prognosis of patients with cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) is unknown. We aimed to investigate the association between AmygA and cardiovascular events in patients with CS.

Methods: Consecutive 40 patients with CS who underwent FDG-PET were identified retrospectively. Cardiovascular events included ventricular tachyarrhythmias and heart failure hospitalizations. We examined the association between AmygA and cardiovascular events and investigated the timing of FDG-PET influence on AmygA measurements.

Results: During a follow-up of 4.5 (2.5-7.7) years, 14 (35%) patients experienced cardiovascular events. Left-AmygA was a stronger cardiovascular event predictor than the Right-AmygA, and incidences were significantly higher in the high left-AmygA group than low group (log-rank P = 0.018). Multivariable analysis revealed left-AmygA augmentation (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.76 per 0.1 increase, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.12-2.87, P = 0.016) was the only independent predictor of cardiovascular event. Among the 40 patients, 32 underwent multiple PET-scans. No significant difference was found between the AmygA value on the first PET-scan and the mean on multiple PET scans, and the correlation coefficient was 0.93 (P < 0.001). Multivariate analyses revealed the mean left-AmygA value was the only independent predictor of cardiovascular event (P = 0.011).

Conclusions: High left-AmygA was associated with the higher rates of cardiovascular events in patients with CS. AmygA would be a prognostic biomarker regardless of the PET-scan timing.

Keywords: 18F-FDG-positron emission tomography; Amygdala; Cardiac sarcoidosis; Stress-related neural activity; VT/VF.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Competing interests: The authors have no relevant financial or non financial interests to disclose. Ethics approval: This study was approved by the Ethics committee of Niigata University (9 August 2024/2024-0064) and was conducted under the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and in compliance with the Ethical Guidelines for Medical and Health Research Involving Human Subjects. Information concerning the implementation of the research, including the handling of existing specimens or information, and research implementation was made public, with opportunities provided for patients to withdraw from the study. Ethics committee of Niigata University considered that these activities met the criteria for ensuring patient consent and waived the need for written informed consent. We used the opt-out method because of the retrospective nature of the study. Consent to participate: Informed consent from all individual participants included in the study was waived by the ethics committee of Niigata University.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Kaplan–Meier analyses of the freedom from cardiovascular events (VT/VF and heart failure hospitalization) VT: ventricular tachycardia; VF: ventricular fibrillation
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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