Porter School of Environmental Studies, Tel Aviv University, Department of Geography and Human Environment, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, Bar Ilan University, Zefat, Israel.
Sci Rep. 2019 Feb 7;9(1):1589. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-38290-z.
Exposure to alien inter-group environments can differently effect ethnic groups' autonomous nervous system, measured by heart rate variability (HRV). Our aim was to evaluate the effect of crossing alien ethnic boundaries on heart rate variability in three selected types of environments. In a field experiment study, we test responses of 72 Muslim and Jewish women to exposure to alien ethnic environments. We measured their HRV in intra and inter-ethnic parks, town centers and residential neighborhoods in Arab and Jewish adjacent towns. The subjects stayed half an hour in each environment. Mixed models were used to evaluate the effects. The results show that for both groups more favorable HRV measurements were demonstrated in intra-ethnic environments as compared to their HRV once crossing ethnic boundaries. The strongest effect in frequency domain (LF/HF) in response to ethnic boundary crossing was observed in the park for Muslims (β:0.65, 95%CI: 0.60-0.70) and for Jews (β: 0.60, 95%CI: 0.57-0.63). Following the eruption of the uprising, the most significant increase in LF/HF in response to ethnic boundary crossing was demonstrated in parks (β: 0.66, 95%CI: 0.60-0.71). In conclusion, both groups are effected by boundary crossing but there are ethnic differences in the autonomic nervous system balance and in response to crossing alien ethnic boundaries. A further study is needed to understand the causes of these differences.
异族环境暴露会通过心率变异性（HRV）对不同种族的自主神经系统产生不同的影响。我们的目的是评估跨越异族边界对三种特定环境中心率变异性的影响。在一项现场实验研究中，我们测试了 72 名穆斯林和犹太女性在接触异族环境时的反应。我们在阿拉伯和犹太相邻城镇的族内和族际公园、市中心和居民区测量了她们的 HRV。受试者在每种环境中停留半小时。采用混合模型评估效果。结果表明，与跨越族际边界后的 HRV 相比，两组在族内环境中的 HRV 测量值更有利。对于穆斯林（β：0.65，95%CI：0.60-0.70）和犹太人（β：0.60，95%CI：0.57-0.63），在频域（LF/HF）中，跨越族际边界的反应中观察到最强的效应。在起义爆发后，对跨越族际边界的反应中 LF/HF 的增加最为显著的是在公园（β：0.66，95%CI：0.60-0.71）。结论：两组都受到边界跨越的影响，但自主神经系统平衡和对跨越异族边界的反应存在种族差异。需要进一步研究以了解这些差异的原因。
