Neurocardiovascular Intelligence Laboratory, Bioengineering and Robotics Research Center E. Piaggio, and Department of Information EngineeringSchool of EngineeringUniversity of Pisa 56126 Pisa Italy.
IEEE J Transl Eng Health Med. 2023 May 29;11:495-504. doi: 10.1109/JTEHM.2023.3280974. eCollection 2023.
The central and autonomic nervous systems are deemed complex dynamic systems, wherein each system as a whole shows features that the individual system sub-components do not. They also continuously interact to maintain body homeostasis and appropriate react to endogenous and exogenous stimuli. Such interactions are comprehensively referred to functional brain-heart interplay (BHI). Nevertheless, it remains uncertain whether this interaction also exhibits complex characteristics, that is, whether the dynamics of the entire nervous system inherently demonstrate complex behavior, or if such complexity is solely a trait of the central and autonomic systems. Here, we performed complexity mapping of the BHI dynamics under mental and physical stress conditions.
Electroencephalographic and heart rate variability series were obtained from 56 healthy individuals performing mental arithmetic or cold-pressure tasks, and physiological series were properly combined to derive directional BHI series, whose complexity was quantified through fuzzy entropy.
The experimental results showed that BHI complexity is mainly modulated in the efferent functional direction from the brain to the heart, and mainly targets vagal oscillations during mental stress and sympathovagal oscillations during physical stress.
We conclude that the complexity of BHI mapping may provide insightful information on the dynamics of both central and autonomic activity, as well as on their continuous interaction.
This research enhances our comprehension of the reciprocal interactions between central and autonomic systems, potentially paving the way for more accurate diagnoses and targeted treatments of cardiovascular, neurological, and psychiatric disorders.
中枢神经系统和自主神经系统被认为是复杂的动力系统，整体系统表现出的特征是单个系统子组件所不具备的。它们还不断相互作用以维持体内平衡，并对内源性和外源性刺激做出适当反应。这种相互作用通常被称为功能性脑-心相互作用（BHI）。然而，目前尚不清楚这种相互作用是否也表现出复杂的特征，即整个神经系统的动态是否固有地表现出复杂行为，或者这种复杂性仅是中枢和自主神经系统的特征。在这里，我们对心理和身体应激条件下的 BHI 动力学进行了复杂性映射。
我们从 56 名健康个体中获取了进行心算或冷压力任务时的脑电图和心率变异性系列，并适当组合生理系列以得出定向 BHI 系列，通过模糊熵来量化其复杂性。
实验结果表明，BHI 复杂性主要在从大脑到心脏的传出功能方向上进行调节，主要针对心理应激时的迷走神经振荡和身体应激时的交感神经迷走神经振荡。
我们得出结论，BHI 映射的复杂性可能为中枢和自主活动的动力学以及它们的持续相互作用提供有价值的信息。
本研究增进了我们对中枢和自主系统之间相互作用的理解，为心血管、神经和精神疾病的更准确诊断和靶向治疗提供了可能。
