Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA.
Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2011 Jun;35(6):1092-105. doi: 10.1111/j.1530-0277.2011.01442.x. Epub 2011 Feb 17.
Alcohol consumption is associated with a broad array of physiologic and behavioral effects including changes in heart rate. However, the physiologic mechanisms of alcohol effects and the reasons for individual differences in the cardiac response remain unknown. Measuring changes in resting heart rate (measured as beats/min) has not been found to be as sensitive to alcohol's effects as changes in heart rate variability (HRV). HRV is defined as fluctuations in interbeat interval length which reflect the heart's response to extracardiac factors that affect heart rate. HRV allows simultaneous assessment of both sympathetic and parasympathetic activity and the interplay between them. Increased HRV has been associated with exercise and aerobic fitness, while decreased HRV has been associated with aging, chronic stress, and a wide variety of medical and psychiatric disorders. Decreased HRV has predictive value for mortality in general population samples and patients with myocardial infarction and used as an indicator of altered autonomic function. A significant inverse correlation was found between HRV and both the severity of depression and the duration of the depressive episode. HRV analysis provides insights into mechanisms of autonomic regulation and is extensively used to clarify relationships between depression and cardiovascular disease. This article will review the methodology of HRV measurements and contemporary knowledge about effects of acute alcohol consumption on HRV. Potential implications of this research include HRV response to alcohol that could serve as a marker for susceptibility to alcoholism. At present however there is almost no research data supporting this hypothesis.
饮酒与广泛的生理和行为效应有关，包括心率变化。然而，酒精效应的生理机制以及个体心脏反应差异的原因仍不清楚。测量静息心率（以每分钟跳动次数为单位）的变化，其敏感性不如心率变异性（HRV）变化高。HRV 定义为心动周期长度的波动，反映了心脏对影响心率的心脏外因素的反应。HRV 可以同时评估交感和副交感活动及其相互作用。HRV 增加与运动和有氧运动能力有关，而 HRV 减少与衰老、慢性压力以及各种医学和精神疾病有关。HRV 减少对一般人群样本和心肌梗死患者的死亡率具有预测价值，并被用作自主功能改变的指标。研究发现 HRV 与抑郁的严重程度和抑郁发作的持续时间呈显著负相关。HRV 分析提供了对自主调节机制的深入了解，广泛用于阐明抑郁和心血管疾病之间的关系。本文将回顾 HRV 测量的方法学以及急性饮酒对 HRV 的影响的当代知识。这项研究的潜在意义包括 HRV 对酒精的反应，它可以作为对酒精成瘾易感性的标志物。然而，目前几乎没有支持这一假设的研究数据。
