After the central nervous system, heart muscle is one of the least capable tissues in the body when it comes to regeneration following injury. This is one of the contributing factors to the downward spiral of heart health in later life, particularly the cell death and scarring that occurs following the ischemia of a heart attack. Researchers here suggest that this lack of regenerative capacity is the rest of an adaptation in the nuclear membrane that protects heart cells from other damaging circumstances by reducing the number of pathways that allow signal molecules to pass into the cell nucleus. That is protective against harmful signals, but also interferes in the signaling necessary for regeneration. While skin and many other tissues of the human body retain the ability to repair themselves after injury, the same isn’t true of the heart. During…