title: Cardiac-locomotor coupling while finger tapping.
abstract: Coupling between cardiac and locomotor rhythms has been identified while people walk, run, hop and cycle at cadences natural to them. To test the hypothesis that cardiac-locomotor coupling occurs during finger tapping, we studied 20 normal subjects tapping a telegraph key at a comfortable rate for 10 min. 15 subjects (75%) coupled significantly at one or more single-digit integer ratio (heart/tapping rate), the most common of which was 1:2. Such coupling should be considered a potentially confounding variable when studying finger tapping in subjects with disease or medication affecting heart rate. Also, the identification of coupling during the repetitive activity of small upper-extremity muscles suggests that neither increases in cardiac load nor impact-loading, two suggested explanations for why coupling occurs, are necessary for the phenomenon.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Kirby
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Carr
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: MacLeod
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal; D001288:Attention; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D008124:Locomotion; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D011930:Reaction Time