Smart tech set to revolutionise heart care

6 October 2025

Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Health and medicine, AI

Smart devices that utilise artificial intelligence have enormous potential to treat heart disease and, with the right investment, Aotearoa New Zealand could be at the forefront, says a leading scientist at Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland.

Cardiovascular diseases kill almost 18 million people every year, making them the leading cause of death globally, according to the World Health Organization. In New Zealand, one in three deaths is from heart disease.

A group of leading heart scientists has gathered evidence from the latest research on the role of the nervous system in conditions such as uncontrolled high blood pressure, heart failure, or dangerous heart rhythms in order to find out where the gaps are and where the field needs to go next. See Nature Reviews Cardiology.

"Many of the medical devices that are currently fitted into patients are what we call 'free running', because they are not being controlled by any bodily cues," says lead author Professor Julian Paton from Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland.

"It is like a heating system in a house without a thermostat. It just gets hotter and hotter. Whereas, in this review, we are saying, 'hang on a minute - how does the body actually work? The body works by having a thermostat," Paton says.

Paton who directs Manaaki Manawa, the centre for heart research at the University of Auckland, has become increasingly interested in the role of stress in heart disease, or more specifically how stress effects the autonomic nervous system that regulates automatic functions in the body, such as heart rate, breathing and blood pressure.

He envisages a new generation of medical devices that work with thermostats, monitoring relevant changes in the body and adjusting devices to modulate nerves to keep the cardiovascular system in balance.

These devices could use machine learning and AI (artificial intelligence) to identify what a person's normal 'settings' are and respond appropriately to correct them when they are showing signs of going awry. An example would be blood pressure - detecting when it has gone up too high and switching on a device to lower it and then turning off the device when it has come down to a safe level.

Such technology is not far away, Paton says.

"All this is potentially do-able with current technology but has not seen the light of day yet," Paton says.

In the future, stem cells could further improve heart healthcare. Scientists are exploring how to repair or replace damaged nerve cells that control the heart using stem cells. Combining stem cell therapy with bioelectronic devices could offer a powerful new way to treat heart disease.

Paton sees huge potential for the University of Auckland to develop such devices.

"We have the capability, with engineers, bioengineers, tissue engineers, physiologists, surgeons, to generate these novel devices, test them pre-clinically, and then do first-in-human studies," Paton says.

"It proves the value of government funding for early discovery research, because we need some money to be able to produce and trial these new innovative devices," Paton says.

There are challenges to work through, such as the acceptability of such devices, how they are maintained, governance of data gathered using AI and more. However, if these new devices work, they will be entering global markets that are worth billions of dollars.

"So, economically for the country, medical devices are a huge route to generating revenue," Paton says. "But it does require slight reorganisation of the deck chairs such that different disciplines start working together more with a specific focus."

Dr Daniel McCormick, a senior researcher in the University's Bioengineering Institute, sees the potential for a Medtech collaboration.

"The Auckland Bioengineering Institute has a unique capability to make devices, which is matched by world-leading expertise in cardiac physiology," McCormick says.

"The University of Auckland can turn that competitive advantage into health outcomes for people with heart disease - and generate economic returns for New Zealand, but only if we have investment from the government and philanthropists to bridge the gap from know-how into physical devices that we can sell."

So, while the heart and vessels both contain muscle that is regulated by nerves, these are accessible and their activity controllable by devices.

"This is pointing to a new era of implantable electroceutical devices and bionic medicine. New Zealand can and must be part of this," Paton says.

• Read the paper

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FMHS media adviser Jodi Yeats M: 027 202 6372 E: [email protected]