Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Transl Psychiatry. 2021 May 14;11(1):286. doi: 10.1038/s41398-021-01401-y.
Exploration of photoplethysmography (PPG), a technique that can be translated to the clinic, has the potential to assess the autonomic nervous system (ANS) through heart rate variable (HRV) in pregnant individuals. This novel study explores the complexity of mental health of individuals in a clinical sample responding to a task in late pregnancy; finding those with several types of past or current anxiety disorders, greater trait anxiety, or greater exposure to childhood traumatic events had significantly different HRV findings from the others in the cohort. Lower high frequency (HF), a measure of parasympathetic activity, was found for women who met the criteria for the history of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) (p = 0.004) compared with women who did not meet the criteria for OCD, and for women exposed to greater than five childhood traumatic events (p = 0.006) compared with those exposed to four or less childhood traumatic events. Conversely higher low frequency (LF), a measure thought to be impacted by sympathetic system effects, and the LF/HF ratio was found for those meeting criteria for a panic disorder (p = 0.006), meeting criteria for social phobia (p = 0.002), had elevated trait anxiety (p = 0.006), or exposure to greater than five childhood traumatic events (p = 0.004). This study indicates further research is needed to understand the role of PPG and in assessing ANS functioning in late pregnancy. Study of the impact of lower parasympathetic functioning and higher sympathetic functioning separately and in conjunction at baseline and in relation to tasks during late pregnancy has the potential to identify individuals that require more support and direct intervention.
探讨光体积描记法（PPG），一种可以转化为临床应用的技术，有可能通过孕妇的心率变异性（HRV）来评估自主神经系统（ANS）。这项新研究探索了在临床样本中，个体在妊娠晚期对任务做出反应时的心理健康复杂性；发现那些有多种过去或当前焦虑障碍、更高特质焦虑或更多童年创伤经历的个体，其 HRV 结果与队列中的其他人有显著差异。发现符合强迫症（OCD）病史标准的女性的高频（HF）较低（p=0.004），与不符合 OCD 病史标准的女性相比，而暴露于五个以上童年创伤事件的女性（p=0.006）与暴露于四个或更少童年创伤事件的女性相比，HF 较低，这是副交感活动的一种衡量标准。相反，LF 较高（LF 被认为受交感神经系统影响），LF/HF 比值较高，符合惊恐障碍标准（p=0.006），符合社交恐惧症标准（p=0.002），特质焦虑较高（p=0.006），或暴露于五个以上童年创伤事件（p=0.004）的女性。这项研究表明，需要进一步研究来了解 PPG 在评估妊娠晚期 ANS 功能中的作用。研究在基线和妊娠晚期任务期间单独和联合测量较低的副交感神经功能和较高的交感神经功能的影响，有可能识别出需要更多支持和直接干预的个体。
