title: Circadian heart rate variability in Parkinson's disease.
abstract: Parkinson's disease is known to affect the reflex cardiovascular control systems, resulting in a suppressed heart rate variability, but present knowledge concerning the long-term characteristics of heart rate and heart rate variability, e. g. circadian regulation, is limited. We investigated the circadian fluctuation of the time domain, frequency domain and some non-linear measures of heart rate variability in 44 untreated patients with Parkinson's disease and 43 age- and sex-matched control subjects.In the parkinsonian patients, the measured power spectral components of heart rate variability (low-frequency power and high-frequency power) and the SD(1) value of the Poincaré two dimensional vector analysis, that quantifies the short term beat-to-beat variability, were suppressed at night. During the daytime only the SD1 of the Poincaré was suppressed. The night-to-day-ratios of the heart rate variability measures did not differ significantly between the patients and the controls. The results indicate that the long-term parasympathetic cardiovascular regulation is impaired in untreated patients with Parkinson's disease. The dysfunction is more pronounced at night.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Oulu, P. O. Box 5000, 90014 Oulu, Finland.
authors.forename: Ville
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pursiainen
authors.forename: Tarja H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Haapaniemi
authors.forename: Juha T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Korpelainen
authors.forename: Heikki V
authors.initials: HV
authors.lastname: Huikuri
authors.forename: Kyösti A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Sotaniemi
authors.forename: Vilho V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Myllylä
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D021081:Chronobiology Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010275:Parasympathetic Nervous System / Q000503:physiopathology; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology*