title: Cardiovascular sympathetic arousal in response to different mental stressors.
abstract: The altered regulation of autonomic response to mental stress can result in increased cardiovascular risk. The laboratory tests used to simulate the autonomic responses to real-life stressors do not necessarily induce generalized sympathetic activation; therefore, the assessment of regulatory outputs to different effector organs could be important. We aimed to study the cardiovascular sympathetic arousal in response to different mental stressors (Stroop test, mental arithmetic test) in 20 healthy students. The conceivable sympathetic vascular index--spectral power of low frequency band of systolic arterial pressure variability (LF-SAP) and novel potential cardio-sympathetic index--symbolic dynamics heart rate variability index 0V% were evaluated. The heart and vessels responded differently to mental stress--while Stroop test induced increase of both 0V% and LF-SAP indices suggesting complex sympathetic arousal, mental arithmetic test evoked only 0V% increase compared to baseline (p<0.01, p<0.001, p<0.01, respectively). Significantly greater reactivity of LF-SAP, 0V%, heart rate (HR) and mean arterial pressure (MAP) were found in response to Stroop test compared to mental arithmetic test potentially indicating the effect of different central processing (0V%, LF-SAP: p<0.001; HR, MAP: p<0.01). The different effectors' sympathetic responses to cognitive stressors could provide novel important information regarding potential pathomechanisms of stress-related diseases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Martin Biomedical Centre, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin, Comenius University in Bratislava, Martin, Slovak Republic. tonhajzerova@jfmed.uniba.sk or ingridtonhajzerova@gmail.com.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mestanik
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mestanikova
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Visnovcova
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Calkovska
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Tonhajzerova
mesh_terms: D001143:Arousal; D062186:Arterial Pressure; D002319:Cardiovascular System / Q000294:innervation*; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D064368:Healthy Volunteers; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D057190:Stroop Test; D013564:Sympathetic Nervous System / Q000503:physiopathology*; D055815:Young Adult