Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Mar 17;34(2):406-11. doi: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2010.01.009. Epub 2010 Jan 18.
Previous studies have observed reduced vagal modulation in patients with acute schizophrenia and their first-degree relatives, thus suggesting a genetic predisposition. To investigate vagal modulation, we analyzed the coupling between heart rate and breathing as a putative measure of central autonomic function in 19 patients, 19 of their relatives and 19 matched control subjects. The interaction of heart rate and breathing was investigated in all groups applying the non-linear parameter cross-ApEn, indicating the asynchrony between both time series. In addition, measures of the time and frequency domain of heart rate variability (HRV) were obtained. The main finding of our study is a significantly increased cross-ApEn value, indicating reduced central vagal modulation both in relatives and patients suffering from schizophrenia. Non-linear measures of HRV proved to more sensitively differentiate relatives from control subjects. Furthermore, we observed a correlation between psychopathology and breathing, indicating that positive symptoms are associated with a higher degree of regularity in the breathing pattern. Our results suggest that autonomic dysfunction previously described for patients suffering from schizophrenia is also present in first-degree relatives. This might relate to changes of brainstem activity in patients and relatives, and a common genetic background in patients and their family members can be assumed.
先前的研究观察到急性精神分裂症患者及其一级亲属的迷走神经调节减少，因此提示存在遗传易感性。为了研究迷走神经调节，我们分析了 19 名患者、19 名亲属和 19 名匹配对照者的心率与呼吸之间的耦合，作为中枢自主功能的一个可能指标。我们在所有组中应用非线性参数交叉 ApEn 来研究心率和呼吸之间的相互作用，这表明了两个时间序列之间的失同步。此外，还获得了心率变异性（HRV）的时间和频率域的测量值。我们研究的主要发现是交叉 ApEn 值显著增加，表明精神分裂症患者及其亲属的中枢迷走神经调节均降低。HRV 的非线性测量值证明可以更敏感地区分亲属和对照者。此外，我们观察到呼吸与精神病理学之间存在相关性，表明阳性症状与呼吸模式的更高规律性相关。我们的结果表明，先前描述的自主神经功能障碍在一级亲属中也存在。这可能与患者和亲属的脑干活动变化有关，并且可以假设患者及其家庭成员存在共同的遗传背景。
