Age Effect on Phase Relations Between Respiratory Oscillations of the RR Interval and Systolic Pressure

Abstract

Spectral analysis may allow the evaluation of (baroreflex) gain and phase between the RR interval and systolic pressure oscillations synchronous with respiration but, unlike baroreflex gain, the determinants of phase are not completely understood. We evaluated the correlates of spectral phase in 92 healthy subjects (44 men) aged 10-80 years. To do so, the cardiorespiratory signals during paced breathing at 16 breaths/min were continuously recorded and analyzed. In addition, respiratory sinus arrhythmia and baroreflex gain (two indices of cardiac vagal activity) and phase were calculated by using an autoregressive spectral technique. At univariate analysis, the phase correlated with age (r = 0.48, P < 0.001), the RR interval (r = 0.32, P < 0.01), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (r = -0.3, P < 0.01), baroreflex gain (r = -0.29, P < 0.01), and body mass index (r = 0.25, P < 0.05). At multivariate analysis, age was the most important physiological correlate of phase, accounting for 23% of interindividual phase variation. Cardiac vagal activity measures (which were higher in women than men) and the RR interval were also significant independent correlates of phase. We conclude that in addition to the RR interval and cardiac vagal activity, age has a significant impact on the phase relationship between respiratory related oscillations of the RR interval and systolic blood pressure. This spectral measure may contain additional information concerning the mechanisms that influence cardiovascular rhythms.

Evidence of unbalanced regulatory mechanism of heart rate and systolic pressure after acute myocardial infarction

“…As demonstrated by young subjects, in physiological conditions the coupling strength evaluated on the two regulatory pathways is substantially balanced and preserved also after the sympathetic activation. In old subjects, our results showed an unbalanced RR-SAP regulation with increased feedforward and a decreased feedback mechanism, thus confirming a recent study pursued by linear cross-spectral analysis (21). This unbalancing was more marked in patients 2 wk after the infarction, mostly due to an increase of coupling on the feedforward regulatory pathway.…”

Larger tonic pupil size in young children with autism spectrum disorder

“…ASD, autism spectrum disorder; MA, mental age-match; CA, chronological age-match. Moritani, 2004;Pitzalis et al, 2000). However, no such relationship has been found with pupillary responses (Filipe, Falcao-Reis, Castro-Correia, & Barros, 2003;Hendriksen, Oey, Wieneke, Bravenboer, & Banga, 1992;Piha, Rommemaa, & Koskenvuo, 1994), and thus BMI was not measured in the current study.…”

“…In addition, because our MA group was heterogeneous, in terms of delay area, replication of this study with more homogeneous clinical controls (e.g., Down syndrome) will be necessary to determine whether this response is specific to ASD. Finally, some autonomic responses such as blood pressure, respiration rate, and HR have been found to be with correlated body mass index (BMI) (e.g., Gelber, Pfeifer, Dawson, & Schumer, 1997; Nagai & Moritani, 2004; Pitzalis et al, 2000). However, no such relationship has been found with pupillary responses (Filipe, Falcao-Reis, Castro-Correia, & Barros, 2003; Hendriksen, Oey, Wieneke, Bravenboer, & Banga, 1992; Piha, Rommemaa, & Koskenvuo, 1994), and thus BMI was not measured in the current study.…”

Physiological Response to Social Evaluative Threat in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Evidence from TD populations implicates developmental effects on ANS measures such as RSA that occur during puberty (Tanaka et al 2000; Kowalewski et al 2007; Jarrin et al 2015) and correlate with age, with the greatest effects in the adolescent epoch beginning at the onset of puberty (Shahrestani et al 2015). RSA studies in TD populations suggest ANS stabilization that occurs between the ages of four and five, and then again during adolescence with the onset of puberty (Pitzalis et al 2000; Woodall and Matthews 1993), followed by a gradual decline with aging (De Meersman 1993; Jennings and Mack 1984). These studies in TD populations suggest that characterization of a pubertal sample of ASD adolescents is warranted.…”