The Association between Baseline Subjective Anxiety Rating and Changes in Cardiac Autonomic Nervous Activity in Response to Tryptophan Depletion in Healthy Volunteers.

Medicine (Baltimore)

From the Department of Psychiatry, National Cheng Kung University Hospital (CYH, HCT, MHC, KCC, PSC, IHL, TLY, YKY), College of Medicine; Addiction Research Center (CYH, KCC, PSC, IHL, TLY, YKY), National Cheng Kung University, Tainan; Department of Psychiatry (HCT, KCC, YKY), National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Dou-Liou Branch, Yunlin; and Institute of Behavioral Medicine (YKY), College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.

Published: May 2016

AI Article Synopsis

  • The study explored how serotonin affects anxiety and the autonomic nervous system (ANS) functions in healthy individuals under tryptophan depletion (TD).
  • Twenty-eight participants completed anxiety assessments and ANS measurements before and after TD, which effectively reduced tryptophan levels in their blood.
  • Results showed an increase in sympathetic activity and a decrease in parasympathetic activity after TD, with significant correlations between anxiety levels and changes in ANS functions, highlighting serotonin's role in anxiety and heart rate variability.

Article Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of serotonin on anxiety and autonomic nervous system (ANS) function; the correlation between subjective anxiety rating and changes of ANS function following tryptophan depletion (TD) in healthy volunteers was examined. Twenty-eight healthy participants, consisting of 15 females and 13 males, with an average age of 33.3 years, were recruited.Baseline Chinese Symptom Checklist-90-Revised and ANS function measurements were taken. TD was carried out on the testing day, and participants provided blood samples right before and 5 hours after TD. ANS function, somatic symptoms, and Visual Analogue Scales (VASs) were determined after TD. Wilcoxon signed rank test and Spearman ρ correlation were adapted for analyses of the results.The TD procedure reduced total and free plasma tryptophan effectively. After TD, the sympathetic nervous activity increased and parasympathetic nervous activity decreased. Baseline anxiety ratings positively correlated with post-TD changes in sympathetic nervous activity, VAS ratings, and physical symptoms. However, a negative correlation with post-TD changes in parasympathetic nervous activity was found.The change in ANS function after TD was associated with the severity of anxiety in healthy volunteers. This supports the fact that the effect of anxiety on heart rate variability is related to serotonin vulnerability. Furthermore, it also shows that the subjective anxiety rating has a biological basis related to serotonin.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4902487PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000003498DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

nervous activity
20
ans function
20
subjective anxiety
12
anxiety rating
12
healthy volunteers
12
rating changes
8
autonomic nervous
8
tryptophan depletion
8
depletion healthy
8
sympathetic nervous
8

Similar Publications

Importance: Current evidence of the association between prenatal exposure to glucocorticoids and long-term mental disorders is scarce and has limitations.

Objective: To investigate the association between prenatal exposure to systemic glucocorticoids and mental disorders in offspring at the age of 15 years, comparing exposed vs unexposed offspring born to mothers with the same underlying disease (risk of preterm delivery and autoimmune or inflammatory disorders).

Design, Setting, And Participants: This nationwide population-based cohort study used data from registries in Denmark with follow-up until December 31, 2018.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Ferroptosis is a classic type of programmed cell death characterized by iron dependence, which is closely associated with many diseases such as cancer, intestinal ischemic diseases, and nervous system diseases. Transferrin (Tf) is responsible for ferric-ion delivery owing to its natural Fe binding ability and plays a crucial role in ferroptosis. However, Tf is not considered as a classic druggable target for ferroptosis-associated diseases since systemic perturbation of Tf would dramatically disrupt blood iron homeostasis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Autistic adults experience greater rates of anxiety and depression compared to the general population. Compassion-focused therapy interventions, aimed at promoting self-compassion capabilities, have shown efficacy in improving mental health outcomes in autistic and non-autistic samples suffering from self-criticism that contribute to difficulties in emotion regulation. We explored the experiences of autistic adults during a brief one-week online self-compassion exercise to evaluate it's feasibility and acceptability through self-report, experience sampling, and parasympathetic activity measured via HRV.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In recent years, it has been increasingly recognized that tumor growth relies not only on support from the surrounding microenvironment but also on the tumors capacity to adapt to - and actively manipulate - its niche. While targeting angiogenesis and modulating the local immune environment have been explored as therapeutic approaches, these strategies have yet to yield effective treatments for brain tumors and remain under refinement. More recently, the nervous system itself has been explored as a critical environmental support for cancer, with extensive neuro-tumoral interactions observed both intracranially and in extracranial sites containing neural components.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The negative impact of repeated-mild traumatic brain injury (rmTBI) is profoundly seen in circadian-disrupted individuals. The unrelenting inflammation, glial activation, and gut dysbiosis are key neuropathological aberrations in the aftermath of rmTBI. In this study, we examined the impact of chitosan lactate (CL) on circadian disturbance (CD) + rmTBI-generated neurological dysfunctions and its prebiotic response on the gut-brain axis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!