Cardiovascular reactivity in isometric exercise and mental arithmetic in children.
In children, we studied noninvasively the cardiovascular stress responses, including changes over time of systolic blood pressure (SBP), heart rate (HR), and stroke volume (SV) in isometric handgrip (IHG) and mental arithmetic. Specifically, we asked whether 1) these cardiovascular stress responses were different for the two stress conditions in children, 2) these responses differed in boys and girls, and 3) the anthropometric variables related to these stress responses. SV differed significantly between IHG and mental arithmetic over the entire stress period. This may reflect higher systemic vascular resistance during IHG. HR in boys was lower than in girls over the entire period of stress in both stress tests. This observation cannot be attributed to differences in conditioning, because this should not influence responses to isometric or mental stress. A larger left ventricular mass was related to higher SVs. A marked relationship was found between HR and SBP and between HR and SV. No relationship was found between SBP and SV.
Verhaaren
H A
HA
Department of Pediatrics, University of Gent, Belgium.
Schieken
R M
RM
Schwartz
P
P
Mosteller
M
M
Matthys
D
D
Maes
H
H
Beunen
G
G
Vlietinck
R
R
Derom
R
R
D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D004452:Echocardiography; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006439:Hemodynamics / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013318:Stroke Volume / Q000502:physiology