Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Hindenburgdamm 30, 12200 Berlin, Germany.
Eur J Appl Physiol. 2010 May;109(2):201-11. doi: 10.1007/s00421-009-1341-x. Epub 2010 Jan 7.
Reduced heart rate variability (HRV) and delayed blood pressure recovery are associated with increased cardiovascular risk. Besides this evident link, the vagus is thought to play an inhibitory role in the regulation of other allostatic systems, including inflammation and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. However, human evidence is scarce. To further explore these associations and with special regard to the postulated mediating role of the vagus, we hypothesised that subjects with low vagal tone as indexed by reduced resting HRV would show impaired post-stress recovery of cardiovascular, endocrine and immune system markers involved in cardiovascular pathology. 44 healthy men underwent a standardised mental stress test. Besides continuous measurement of systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP), heart rate (HR), and HRV serum cortisol, tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) were measured before, after, 20, and 60 min after stress. Low versus high HRV groups was defined by median split on resting HRV (RMSSD). The task elicited significant time effects for SBP, DBP, HR, HRV, cortisol, and TNF-alpha. Subjects with low baseline HRV showed almost no modulation of HRV coupled with overall reduced HRV levels, and impaired recovery of DBP, cortisol, and TNF-alpha. Confirming our hypothesis, low vagal tone was associated with impaired recovery of cardiovascular, endocrine, and immune markers in healthy males. The data support an inhibitory role of the vagus in the regulation of allostatic systems as described in the neurovisceral integration model. We posit reduced resting HRV as a risk marker for future cardiovascular and other stress-related disease.
心率变异性（HRV）降低和血压恢复延迟与心血管风险增加有关。除了这种明显的联系，迷走神经被认为在调节其他适应系统中发挥抑制作用，包括炎症和下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴。然而，人类的证据很少。为了进一步探索这些关联，特别是考虑到迷走神经的假设中介作用，我们假设以静息 HRV 降低为指标的低迷走神经张力的受试者在心血管病理学中涉及的心血管、内分泌和免疫系统标志物的应激后恢复会受损。44 名健康男性接受了标准化的心理应激测试。除了连续测量收缩压和舒张压（SBP、DBP）、心率（HR）和 HRV 外，在应激前、应激后 20 分钟和 60 分钟还测量了血清皮质醇、肿瘤坏死因子-α（TNF-α）和白细胞介素-6（IL-6）。静息 HRV（RMSSD）的中位数分割将 HRV 分为低与高 HRV 组。该任务引起 SBP、DBP、HR、HRV、皮质醇和 TNF-α的显著时间效应。基线 HRV 较低的受试者 HRV 几乎没有调节，整体 HRV 水平降低，DBP、皮质醇和 TNF-α的恢复受损。证实了我们的假设，低迷走神经张力与健康男性心血管、内分泌和免疫标志物的恢复受损有关。这些数据支持神经内脏整合模型中描述的迷走神经在调节适应系统中的抑制作用。我们假设静息 HRV 降低作为未来心血管和其他应激相关疾病的风险标志物。
