Dynamic coupling between the central and autonomic cardiac nervous systems in patients with refractory epilepsy: A pilot study.

The heart and brain are reciprocally interconnected and engage in two-way communication for homeostatic regulation. Epilepsy is considered a network disease that also affects the autonomic nervous system (ANS). The neurovisceral integration model (NVM) proposes that cardiac vagal tone, indexed by heart rate variability (HRV), can indicate the functional integrity of cognitive neural networks.