Clinic for Psychosomatic and General Clinical Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Thibautstrasse 2, Heidelberg, Germany.
World J Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Apr;11(3):586-93. doi: 10.3109/15622970903397714.
Despite its clinical importance and relevance for health care policy, the pathways between depression and stress regulation remain poorly understood. The objective of our study was to compare cardiovascular and autonomic responses to brief psychosocial stress in a group of severely depressed subjects without heart disease and a non-depressed control-group.
We recorded cardiovascular and autonomic reactions to two different stress tasks including anger recall and mental arithmetic in a sample of 25 severely depressed and 25 non-depressed subjects. Aggregated data were compared with repeated-measures MANOVA. We used contrasts to evaluate different response patterns concerning cardiovascular and autonomic reactivity vs. recovery.
Depressed subjects showed overall reduced high-frequency heart rate variability and an altered cardiovascular adaptability concerning heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, and, on a trend level, peripheral resistance. With few exceptions, we found no differences between reactivity vs. recovery response patterns.
Our results provide further evidence for altered cardiovascular reactivity and impaired cardiac autonomic functioning in depression. Further research is needed on psychophysiological response to either more disease-oriented or more personality-oriented stressors.
尽管抑郁与应激调节之间的关系具有重要的临床意义和相关性，但对于它们之间的通路仍知之甚少。本研究的目的是比较一组无心脏病的重度抑郁患者和非抑郁对照组在接受短暂的心理社会压力时心血管和自主神经的反应。
我们记录了 25 名重度抑郁患者和 25 名非抑郁患者在愤怒回忆和心算两种不同应激任务下的心血管和自主神经反应。采用重复测量 MANOVA 比较汇总数据。我们使用对比来评估心血管和自主神经反应性与恢复性的不同反应模式。
抑郁组的高频心率变异性总体降低，心率、血压、心输出量和外周阻力的心血管适应能力发生改变。除了少数例外，我们没有发现反应性与恢复性反应模式之间的差异。
我们的结果进一步提供了抑郁患者心血管反应性改变和心脏自主功能受损的证据。需要进一步研究针对更具疾病导向或更具人格导向的应激源的心理生理反应。
