Not All Competitions Come to Harm! Competitive Biofeedback to Increase Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia in Managers.

Despite the positive impact on achievement, competition has been associated with elevated psychophysiological activation, potentially leading to a greater risk of cardiovascular diseases. Competitive biofeedback (BF) can be used to highlight the effects of competition on the same physiological responses that are going to be controlled through BF. However, it is still unknown whether competition could enhance the effects of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)-BF training in improving cardiac vagal control.

Cardiac autonomic activity during daytime nap in young adults.

The current study investigated both sympathetic and vagal autonomic patterns during a daytime sleep in 25 healthy adults (23.2 ± 2.4 years).

Sleep before and after learning promotes the consolidation of both neutral and emotional information regardless of REM presence.

Sleep may play a role in consolidating emotional memories. However, studies on the effects of REM sleep on negative vs. neutral memories have produced inconsistent evidence.

Reduced cerebral and cardiovascular hemodynamics during sustained affective stimulation in young women with chronic low blood pressure.

Although low blood pressure has been associated with lower affect and higher depressive symptoms in the elderly, the presence of possible impairment in emotional reactivity in chronic hypotensive individuals in early adulthood remains largely unexplored. Using a combination of transcranial Doppler sonography, beat-to-beat blood pressure recording and impedance cardiography we assessed central and peripheral hemodynamic changes in 15 undergraduate women with chronic hypotension (Age: 23.9 ± 2.

Nocturnal cardiac autonomic profile in young primary insomniacs and good sleepers.

We investigated cardiac vagal and sympathetic activity in 13 young primary insomniacs (PI; 24.4±1.6years) and 14 good sleepers (GS; 23.

Impaired off-line motor skills consolidation in young primary insomniacs.

Compelling evidence indicates that sleep can facilitate the off-line consolidation of declarative, perceptual, emotional and procedural memories. Here we assessed the sleep-related off-line consolidation of motor skills in 13 young primary insomniacs (23.31±2.

Facing emotions in narcolepsy with cataplexy: haemodynamic and behavioural responses during emotional stimulation.

Narcolepsy with cataplexy is a complex sleep disorder that affects the modulation of emotions: cataplexy, the key symptom of narcolepsy, is indeed strongly linked with emotions that usually trigger the episodes. Our study aimed to investigate haemodynamic and behavioural responses during emotional stimulation in narco-cataplexy. Twelve adult drug-naive narcoleptic patients (five males; age: 33.

Working memory impairment and cardiovascular hyperarousal in young primary insomniacs.

We investigated memory performance and cardiovascular activity in 13 primary insomniacs (PI) compared to 13 good sleepers (GS). Cardiovascular and hemodynamic measures, including heart rate, pre-ejection period, and blood pressure, were continuously recorded at rest and during two memory tasks. PI showed working memory impairment under high cognitive load, but performed as well as GS in an easy memory task.

Polysomnographic validation of a wireless dry headband technology for sleep monitoring in healthy young adults.

The present study aimed to explore the validity and reliability of a wireless dry headband technology for sleep monitoring (WS), through a comparison with concurrent polysomnographic (PSG) recording in healthy young adults. Eleven volunteers (7 females; mean age±SD: 24.75±3.

Cardiovascular down-regulation in essential hypotension: relationships with autonomic control and sleep.

In this work, we aimed to clarify the autonomic involvement in the cardiovascular down-regulation in essential hypotension. The relationships between cardiovascular response and sleep quality were also examined. Thirteen female hypotensives and 13 female normotensives performed a stress task followed by polysomnography.

Relationship between cardiovascular resting state and visual attention.

Introduction: Cardiovascular features seem to modulate performance in attention tasks.

Methods: We investigated the relationship between blood pressure, resting heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) and performance in a visuospatial attention task comparing normotensive and hypotensive young adults.

Conclusions: We found an association between resting HRV and visual attention performance only in the normotensive group.

Nocturnal cardiovascular activity in essential hypotension: evidence of differential autonomic regulation.

Objective: Essential hypotension represents a form of chronic low blood pressure (BP) not explained by medical or orthostatic conditions. The pathogenesis of essential hypotension may involve sympathetic hypoactivation and other forms of autonomic dysregulation. The aim of the current study was to investigate autonomic and cardiovascular activity during sleep in individuals with essential hypotension.

Hemodynamic and autonomic modifications during sleep stages in young hypotensive women.

This study examined cardiovascular activity and autonomic involvement during sleep in essential hypotension. We compared young female hypotensives and normotensives using ambulatory blood pressure monitoring, impedance cardiography, and frequency-domain analysis of heart rate variability during a night of polysomnographic recording. Hypotensives, as compared to normotensives, exhibited lower blood pressure, reduced myocardial contractility and reduced sympathovagal balance across the whole night.

Cardiac autonomic profile during rest and working memory load in essential hypotensive women.

To our knowledge, no previous study has provided reliable data supporting a different modulation of the Neurovegetative system in essential hypotension. Our purpose was to provide, in essential hypotensive women compared to normotensives, evidence of a distinct sympathetic and parasympathetic cardiac control. Cardiovascular and autonomic indexes derived by impedance cardiography (heart rate, HR; pre-ejection period, PEP), photoplethysmographic technique (blood pressure, BP) and heart rate variability analysis (high and low frequencies power, HF and LF) were continuously collected during rest and mental stress condition.

Impaired cerebral and systemic hemodynamics under cognitive load in young hypotensives: a transcranial Doppler study.

Reduced sympathetic outflow and deficits in cerebral hemodynamics have been considered as possible factors mediating the impaired cognitive performance in essential hypotension. However, the relationship between systemic blood pressure (BP), cerebral blood flow and cognitive functioning is still poorly understood. The present study was aimed at clarifying the physiological processes underlying cerebral and systemic hemodynamics in young hypotensives during cognitive engagement.

Effects of sleep deprivation on auditory change detection: a N1-mismatch negativity study.

The effects of sleep deprivation on neural activity underlying stimulus change detection are still debated. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of sleep deprivation on the relationship between N1 refractoriness and Mismatch Negativity (MMN) as indexes of different stages of change detection. Respectively, N1 represents the sensory feature trace creation with stimulus repetition and MMN represents the memory-based detection of deviance in a new incoming stimulus.

Cognitive performance and cardiovascular markers of hyperarousal in primary insomnia.

The purpose of the present study was to assess differences in cardiovascular activity and cognitive performance between insomniacs and good sleepers. Sixteen undergraduates participated in the study, eight insomniacs (age 22.9 ± 2.

Sleep onset and cardiovascular activity in primary insomnia.

The transition from wakefulness to sleep is characterized typically by a shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic regulation. Physiological functions, depending on the neurovegetative system, decrease overall. Previous studies have shown cardiovascular and electroencephalographic hyperactivity during wakefulness and sleep in insomniacs compared with normal sleepers, but there is very little evidence of this in the process of sleep onset.

Delta EEG band as a marker of left hypofrontality for language in schizophrenia patients.

Frontal hypoactivation has consistently been demonstrated in schizophrenia patients. We hypothesized that this well-known deficit is asymmetrical, ie, centered over left frontal locations and, in-line with Crow's theory, associated with both loss of linguistic asymmetry and correlated with positive symptoms. Electroencephalography delta band was used as a quantitative index of cortical inhibition in 17 paranoid schizophrenia patients with prevailing positive symptoms and 17 matched control subjects.

Schizophrenia as failure of left hemispheric dominance for the phonological component of language.

Background: T. J. Crow suggested that the genetic variance associated with the evolution in Homo sapiens of hemispheric dominance for language carries with it the hazard of the symptoms of schizophrenia.

Cardiovascular dynamics in blood phobia: evidence for a key role of sympathetic activity in vulnerability to syncope.

This study was aimed at clarifying the mechanism predisposing people with blood phobia to syncope by investigating the complete hemodynamic response pattern and the underlying autonomic control. Blood phobics and controls were shown 3 film-clips: phobia-related, phobia-unrelated, and neutral. Hemodynamic responses were recorded using impedance cardiography and Finapres.

Failure of language lateralization in schizophrenia patients: an ERP study on early linguistic components.

Objective: In line with Crow's hypothesis, altered hemispheric lateralization of language would cause the main symptoms of schizophrenia. The present experiment aimed to demonstrate the loss of the hemispheric specialization for linguistic processing in schizophrenia patients at the level of early automatic evoked potentials (N150).

Methods: A sample of 10 outpatients with schizophrenia treated with low levels of neuroleptics and 10 matched healthy control subjects were administered 3 linguistic tasks based on stimulus pair comparisons (phonological, semantic and word-picture matching tasks).

Cerebral blood flow in essential hypotension during emotional activation.

Variations of blood flow velocity in the left and right middle cerebral arteries (MCA) were measured in 20 hypotensive women and 20 normotensive control subjects during emotional stimulation using functional transcranial Doppler sonography (fTDS). The emotional stimuli were composed of three series (neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant) of 20 pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Both groups exhibited greater increases in right than left MCA blood flow during emotional stimulation.

Blood pressure changes highlight gender differences in emotional reactivity to arousing pictures.

The current study was aimed at investigating the effects of gender on the magnitude and patterning of blood pressure responses to specific pleasant and unpleasant, arousing visual stimuli. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP), as well as heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SCR) responses were investigated during picture viewing in 21 female and 25 male students. The pattern of SCR and HR reactivity across emotional categories was found to be similar for men and women.