title: Selective quantification of the cardiac sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems by multisignal analysis of cardiorespiratory variability.
abstract: Heart rate (HR) power spectral indexes are limited as measures of the cardiac autonomic nervous systems (CANS) in that they neither offer an effective marker of the beta-sympathetic nervous system (SNS) due to its overlap with the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) in the low-frequency (LF) band nor afford specific measures of the CANS due to input contributions to HR [e.g., arterial blood pressure (ABP) and instantaneous lung volume (ILV)]. We derived new PNS and SNS indexes by multisignal analysis of cardiorespiratory variability. The basic idea was to identify the autonomically mediated transfer functions relating fluctuations in ILV to HR (ILV-->HR) and fluctuations in ABP to HR (ABP-->HR) so as to eliminate the input contributions to HR and then separate each estimated transfer function in the time domain into PNS and SNS indexes using physiological knowledge. We evaluated these indexes with respect to selective pharmacological autonomic nervous blockade in 14 humans. Our results showed that the PNS index derived from the ABP-->HR transfer function was correctly decreased after vagal and double (vagal + beta-sympathetic) blockade (P < 0.01) and did not change after beta-sympathetic blockade, whereas the SNS index derived from the same transfer function was correctly reduced after beta-sympathetic blockade in the standing posture and double blockade (P < 0.05) and remained the same after vagal blockade. However, this SNS index did not significantly decrease after beta-sympathetic blockade in the supine posture. Overall, these predictions were better than those provided by the traditional high-frequency (HF) power, LF-to-HF ratio, and normalized LF power of HR variability.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaoxiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ramakrishna
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mukkamala
mesh_terms: D000319:Adrenergic beta-Antagonists / Q000494:pharmacology; D000328:Adult; D001285:Atropine / Q000494:pharmacology; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000187:drug effects; D002319:Cardiovascular System / Q000187:drug effects / Q000294:innervation*; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000187:drug effects; D006801:Humans; D008176:Lung Volume Measurements; D008297:Male; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D018727:Muscarinic Antagonists / Q000494:pharmacology; D010275:Parasympathetic Nervous System / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D011187:Posture; D011433:Propranolol / Q000494:pharmacology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013564:Sympathetic Nervous System / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D014630:Vagus Nerve / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D000319:Adrenergic beta-Antagonists; D018727:Muscarinic Antagonists; D001285:Atropine; D011433:Propranolol