The Biology of a Broken Heart Mónica M. Bernardo

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/biology-broken-heart-2026a1000n07 Shakespeare wrote about it before modern medicine had even considered the possibility. Romeo dies believing that Juliet has passed away, and Juliet takes her own life upon finding Romeo’s lifeless body. There is no prior injury, no infection, and no coronary obstruction that would explain this outcome from the perspective of modern biology — only a succession of loss, despair, and emotional collapse. That scene has been read and interpreted countless times as a literary tragedy; today, cardiology and neuroscience are debating whether, in some cases, the line separating poetic metaphor and human biology is more blurred than it seems.