The present invention includes systems and methods for measuring, monitoring and treating arrhythmia and cardiac function via the intrinsic cardiac nervous system. The systems and methods compare neural signatures of the intrinsic cardiac nervous system that are associated with both healthy and diseased myocardial tissue to identify and target afferent intrinsic cardiac neurons for which signaling has been affected by diseased cardiac tissue. Accordingly, methods of modulating afferent neural signals from the diseased myocardium to the intrinsic cardiac nervous system, intrathoracic extracardiac ganglia, and higher centers of the cardiac neuraxis are used as a novel therapeutic approach to mitigating ischemic heart disease.
