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Olivieri F, Biscetti L, Pimpini L, Pelliccioni G, Sabbatinelli J, Giunta S. Heart rate variability and autonomic nervous system imbalance: Potential biomarkers and detectable hallmarks of aging and inflammaging. Ageing Res Rev 2024; 101:102521. [PMID: 39341508 DOI: 10.1016/j.arr.2024.102521] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/10/2024] [Revised: 09/11/2024] [Accepted: 09/23/2024] [Indexed: 10/01/2024]
Abstract
The most cutting-edge issue in the research on aging is the quest for biomarkers that transcend molecular and cellular domains to encompass organismal-level implications. We recently hypothesized the role of Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) imbalance in this context. Studies on ANS functions during aging highlighted an imbalance towards heightened sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity, instigating a proinflammatory milieu, and attenuated parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) function, which exerts anti-inflammatory effects via the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway (CAP) and suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. This scenario strongly suggests that ANS imbalance can fuel inflammaging, now recognized as one of the most relevant risk factors for age-related disease development. Recent recommendations have increasingly highlighted the need for actionable strategies to improve the quality of life for older adults by identifying biomarkers that can be easily measured, even in asymptomatic individuals. We advocate for considering ANS imbalance as a biomarker of aging and inflammaging. Measures of ANS imbalance, such as heart rate variability (HRV), are relatively affordable, non-invasive, and cost-effective, making this hallmark easily diagnosable. HRV gains renewed significance within the aging research landscape, offering a tangible link between pathophysiological perturbations and age-related health outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fabiola Olivieri
- Department of Clinical and Molecular Sciences, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy; Advanced Technology Center for Aging Research and Geriatric Mouse Clinic, IRCCS INRCA, Ancona, Italy
| | | | | | | | - Jacopo Sabbatinelli
- Department of Clinical and Molecular Sciences, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy; Clinic of Laboratory and Precision Medicine, IRCCS INRCA, Ancona, Italy.
| | - Sergio Giunta
- Casa di Cura Prof. Nobili (Gruppo Garofalo GHC), Castiglione dei Pepoli, Bologna, Italy
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Mohanty S, Singh D, Singh A, Krishna D, Mohanty S, Vinchurkar S. Improving Prefrontal Oxygenation and Cardiac Autonomic Activity Following Meditation: A Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) Study. Cureus 2024; 16:e65978. [PMID: 39221378 PMCID: PMC11366063 DOI: 10.7759/cureus.65978] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/01/2024] [Indexed: 09/04/2024] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE The empirical evidence explicitly demonstrates that meditation practice enhances both brain functions and mental well-being. A meditative relaxation approach called the mind sound resonance technique (MSRT) has shown promising effects on children, adolescents, and people with psychological illnesses. This study aimed to investigate the effects of MSRT practice on brain hemodynamics, heart rate variability (HRV), mindfulness, and anxiety levels in college students. METHODS Fifty volunteers in all genders (females, n = 30; males, n = 20) aged between 19 and 30 years were chosen from an educational institute and allocated into two groups, i.e., MSRT (n = 25) and supine rest (SR; n = 25). Enrolled participants were measured cerebral hemodynamics and HRV before, during, and after the MSRT or SR practice. The self-reported assessments including state anxiety and mindfulness were assessed before and after the intervention. RESULTS The results demonstrated that practicing MSRT significantly improved oxygenation (p < 0.05) in the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) and increased low-frequency (LF) (p < 0.05) and decreased high-frequency (HF) (p < 0.05) component of HRV when compared to the baseline. The between-group analysis showed a significant difference between MSRT and SR in the standard deviation of the normal-to-normal (SDNN) (p < 0.05) component of HRV. CONCLUSION These crumbs of evidence imply that MSRT sessions may foster the development of anxiety-related coping skills by elevating mindfulness, promoting PFC oxygenation, and modulating HRV in MSRT practitioners.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sushanta Mohanty
- Division of Yoga and Life Sciences, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Bengaluru, IND
| | - Deepeshwar Singh
- Division of Yoga and Life Sciences, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Bengaluru, IND
- Department of Yoga, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Lucknow, IND
| | - Amit Singh
- Division of Yoga and Life Sciences, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Bengaluru, IND
| | - Dwivedi Krishna
- Division of Yoga and Life Sciences, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Bengaluru, IND
| | - Subarana Mohanty
- Division of Yoga and Life Sciences, Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, Bengaluru, IND
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Long K, Zhang X, Wang N, Lei H. Event-related prefrontal activations during online video game playing are modulated by game mechanics, physiological arousal and the amount of daily playing. Behav Brain Res 2024; 469:115038. [PMID: 38705282 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2024.115038] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/27/2023] [Revised: 04/09/2024] [Accepted: 04/30/2024] [Indexed: 05/07/2024]
Abstract
There is a trend to study human brain functions in ecological contexts and in relation to human factors. In this study, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to record real-time prefrontal activities in 42 male university student habitual video game players when they played a round of multiplayer online battle arena game, League of Legends. A content-based event coding approach was used to analyze regional activations in relation to event type, physiological arousal indexed by heart rate (HR) change, and individual characteristics of the player. Game events Slay and Slain were found to be associated with similar HR and prefrontal responses before the event onset, but differential responses after the event onset. Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) activation preceding the Slay onset correlated positively with HR change, whereas activations in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and rostral frontal pole area (FPAr) preceding the Slain onset were predicted by self-reported hours of weekly playing (HoWP). Together, these results provide empirical evidence to support the notion that event-related regional prefrontal activations during online video game playing are shaped by game mechanics, in-game dynamics of physiological arousal and individual characteristics the players.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kehong Long
- State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PR China
| | - Xuzhe Zhang
- State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PR China
| | - Ningxin Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei, PR China; Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, PR China
| | - Hao Lei
- State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, Hubei, PR China; Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, PR China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PR China.
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Min J, Koenig J, Nashiro K, Yoo HJ, Cho C, Thayer JF, Mather M. Resting heart rate variability is associated with neural adaptation when repeatedly exposed to emotional stimuli. Neuropsychologia 2024; 196:108819. [PMID: 38360391 PMCID: PMC11293881 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2024.108819] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2023] [Revised: 01/24/2024] [Accepted: 02/05/2024] [Indexed: 02/17/2024]
Abstract
Higher heart rate variability (HRV) at rest is associated with better emotion regulation ability. While the neurovisceral integration model explains this by postulating that HRV can index how the brain adaptively modulates responses to emotional stimuli, neuroimaging studies directly supporting this idea are scarce. We examined the neural correlates of regulating negative and positive emotion in relation to resting HRV based on the neuroimaging and heart rate data of one hundred young adults. The results showed that those with higher HRV better recruit the medial prefrontal cortex while intensifying positive compared to negative emotion. We also examined how individual differences in resting HRV are associated with adjusting brain activity to repeated emotional stimuli. During repeated viewing of emotional images, subjects with higher resting HRV better reduced activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate gyrus, and angular gyrus, most of which overlapped with the default mode network. This HRV-DMN association was observed during passively viewing emotional images rather than during actively regulating emotion. While the regulating trials can better detect task-induced changes, the viewing trials might approximate resting state, better revealing individual differences. These findings suggest two possibilities: people with higher resting HRV might have a tendency to spontaneously engage with emotion regulation or possess a trait helping emotional arousal fade away.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jungwon Min
- University of Southern California, Irvine, CA, United States.
| | - Julian Koenig
- University of Cologne, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Germany
| | - Kaoru Nashiro
- University of Southern California, Irvine, CA, United States
| | - Hyun Joo Yoo
- University of Southern California, Irvine, CA, United States
| | - Christine Cho
- University of Southern California, Irvine, CA, United States
| | | | - Mara Mather
- University of Southern California, Irvine, CA, United States
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Luo X, Wang R, Zhou Y, Xie W. The relationship between emotional disorders and heart rate variability: A Mendelian randomization study. PLoS One 2024; 19:e0298998. [PMID: 38451975 PMCID: PMC10919610 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298998] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2023] [Accepted: 02/04/2024] [Indexed: 03/09/2024] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE Previous studies have shown that emotional disorders are negatively associated with heart rate variability (HRV), but the potential causal relationship between genetic susceptibility to emotional disorders and HRV remains unclear. We aimed to perform a Mendelian randomization (MR) study to investigate the potential association between emotional disorders and HRV. METHODS The data used for this study were obtained from publicly available genome-wide association study datasets. Five models, including the inverse variance weighted model (IVW), the weighted median estimation model (WME), the weighted model-based method (WM), the simple model (SM) and the MR-Egger regression model (MER), were utilized for MR. The leave-one-out sensitivity test, MR pleiotropy residual sum and outlier test (MR-PRESSO) and Cochran's Q test were used to confirm heterogeneity and pleiotropy. RESULTS MR analysis revealed that genetic susceptibility to broad depression was negatively correlated with HRV (pvRSA/HF) (OR = 0.380, 95% CI 0.146-0.992; p = 0.048). However, genetic susceptibility to irritability was positively correlated with HRV (pvRSA/HF, SDNN) (OR = 2.017, 95% CI 1.152-3.534, p = 0.008) (OR = 1.154, 95% CI 1.000-1.331, p = 0.044). Genetic susceptibility to anxiety was positively correlated with HRV (RMSSD) (OR = 2.106, 95% CI 1.032-4.299; p = 0.041). No significant directional pleiotropy or heterogeneity was detected. The accuracy and robustness of these findings were confirmed through a sensitivity analysis. CONCLUSIONS Our MR study provides genetic support for the causal effects of broad depression, irritable mood, and anxiety on HRV.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xu Luo
- College of Clinical Medicine, University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
| | - Rui Wang
- College of Clinical Medicine, University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
| | - YunXiang Zhou
- College of Clinical Medicine, University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
| | - Wen Xie
- College of Clinical Medicine, University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
- Department of Cardiology, Hospital of Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
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McIntosh RC, Hoshi RA, Nomi J, Goodman Z, Kornfeld S, Vidot DC. I know why the caged bird sings: Distress tolerant individuals show greater resting state connectivity between ventromedial prefrontal cortex and right amygdala as a function of higher vagal tone. Int J Psychophysiol 2024; 196:112274. [PMID: 38049075 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2023.112274] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/04/2023] [Revised: 11/09/2023] [Accepted: 11/25/2023] [Indexed: 12/06/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Intolerance to psychological distress is associated with various forms of psychopathology, ranging from addiction to mood disturbance. The capacity to withstand aversive affective states is often explained by individual differences in cardiovagal tone as well as resting state connectivity of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a region involved in the regulation of emotions and cardio-autonomic tone. However, it is unclear which brain regions involved in distress tolerance show greater resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) as a function of resting heart rate variability (HRV). METHODS One-hundred and twenty-six adults, aged 20 to 83.5 years, were selected from a lifespan cohort at the Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland Sample. Participants' distress tolerance levels were assessed based upon performance on the Behavioral Indicator of Resiliency to Distress (BIRD) task. Artifact-free resting-state functional brain scans collected during separate sessions were used. While inside the scanner, a pulse oximeter was used to record beat-to-beat intervals to derive high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV). The relationship between HF-HRV and vmPFC to whole brain functional connectivity was compared between distress tolerant (BIRD completers) and distress intolerant (BIRD non-completers). RESULTS Groups did not differ in their history of psychiatric diagnosis. Higher resting HF-HRV was associated with longer total time spent on the BIRD task for the entire sample (r = 0.255, p = 0.004). After controlling for age, gender, body mass index, head motion, and gray matter volume. Distress tolerant individuals showed greater rsFC (p < 0.005 (uncorrected), k = 20) between the vmPFC and default-mode network (DMN) hubs including posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus, medial temporal lobes, and the parahippocampal cortex. As a function of higher resting HF-HRV greater vmPFC connectivity was observed with sub-threshold regions in the right amygdala and left anterior prefrontal cortex, with the former passing small volume correction, in distress tolerant versus distress intolerant individuals. CONCLUSION In a lifespan sample of community-dwelling adults, distress tolerant individuals showed greater vmPFC connectivity with anterior and posterior hubs of the DMN compared to distress intolerant individuals. As a function of greater HF-HRV, distress tolerant individuals evidenced greater vmPFC with salience and executive control network hubs. These findings are consistent with deficits in neural resource allocation within a triple network resting amongst persons exhibiting behavioral intolerance to psychological distress.
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Affiliation(s)
- R C McIntosh
- Department of Psychology, University of Miami, 1120 NW 14th Street, Miami 33136, FL, United States.
| | - R A Hoshi
- Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 75 Francis Street, Boston, MA 02115, United States
| | - J Nomi
- UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior, 760 Westwood, CA 90095, United States
| | - Z Goodman
- Department of Psychology, University of Miami, 1120 NW 14th Street, Miami 33136, FL, United States
| | - S Kornfeld
- REHAB Basel - Klinik für Neurorehabilitation und Paraplegiologie, Basel, Switzerland
| | - D C Vidot
- School of Nursing and Health Studies, University of Miami, 5030 Brunson Ave, Coral Gables 33146, FL, United States
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