Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) is a useful tool for evaluating cardiovascular autonomic nervous system (ANS) functions. This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the potential effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) protocols on HRV parameters.
Methods: This study acquired 97 comparisons from 24 qualified studies for data synthesis. Using standardized mean difference (SMD), individual and overall effect sizes were estimated to show differences in HRV variables between active tDCS and sham stimulation conditions. More positive effect size values indicated that active tDCS caused greater increases in HRV than sham stimulation. Furthermore, moderator variable analyses were performed to determine whether changes in HRV variables differed depending on (a) task types (physical stress versus psychological stress versus resting condition), (b) targeted brain regions, (c) stimulation polarity, (d) characteristics of participants, and (e) specific HRV variables. Finally, we used meta-regression analyses to determine whether different tDCS parameters (i.e., the number of tDCS sessions, stimulation duration, and density) were associated with changes in HRV patterns.
Results: The random-effects model meta-analysis showed that tDCS protocols significantly improved HRV variables (SMD = 0.400; P < 0.001). Moreover, for increasing HRV during the physical stress task (SMD = 1.352; P = 0.001), anodal stimulation on the M1 was effective, while combined polarity stimulation on the PFC improved HRV during the psychological stress task (SMD = 0.550; P < 0.001) and resting condition (SMD = 0.192; P = 0.012). Additional moderator variables and meta-regression analyses failed to show that tDCS protocols had positive effects in certain conditions, such as different stimulus polarity, characteristics of participants, specific HRV variables, and tDCS parameters.
Conclusion: These findings tentatively suggest that using tDCS protocols to stimulate optimal targeted brain areas may be effective in improving HRV patterns potentially related to cardiovascular ANS functions.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pnpbp.2024.111072 | DOI Listing |
Cardiovasc Eng Technol
January 2025
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA.
Purpose: This study explores the use of heart rate variability (HRV) analysis, a noninvasive technique for assessing the autonomic nervous system, by applying nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory to detect chaotic behavior in RR intervals and assess cardiovascular health.
Methods: Employing the "System Analysis of Heart Rate Dynamics" (SADR) program, this research combines chaos analysis with the short-time Fourier transform to assess nonlinear dynamic parameters in HRV. It includes constructing phase portraits in Takens space and calculating measures of chaos to identify deterministic chaos indicators.
J Affect Disord
January 2025
Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, China. Electronic address:
Background: The relationship between heart rate variability (HRV) and major depressive disorder (MDD) has been well explored. However, current researches lack an observation of HRV in subthreshold depression (SubD), which increases the risk of MDD and presents significant societal challenges.
Methods: This study compared resting state HRV among 128 MDD patients, 131 SubD individuals and 222 healthy controls (HC) recruited from the hospital, physical examination center, and colleges.
Front Nutr
December 2024
R&D, Sirio Pharma Co., Ltd, Shantou, Guangdong, China.
Two large-scale, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials-REDUCE-IT and STRENGTH-have garnered significant attention in cardiovascular medicine. Both trials aimed to evaluate the effects of prolonged administration of nutritional lipids, specifically omega-3 fatty acids, on major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs) in high-risk patients undergoing statin therapy. REDUCE-IT used eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) ethyl ester with mineral oil as a control, while STRENGTH utilized a carboxylic acid formulation of both EPA and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) with corn oil as a control.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Psychosom Res
December 2024
REVAL - Rehabilitation Research Center, Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium; Health Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. Electronic address:
Background: The goal of this study was to examine autonomic nervous system function by measuring heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), skin conductance levels (SCL), and peripheral skin temperature (ST) in response to and during recovery from psychosocial stressors in patients with functional somatic syndromes (FSS; fibromyalgia and/or chronic fatigue syndrome), stress-related syndromes (SRS; overstrain or burn-out), and healthy controls (HC).
Methods: Patients with FSS (n = 26), patients with SRS (n = 59), and HC (n = 30) went through a standardized psychosocial stress test consisting of a resting phase (120 s), the STROOP color word task (120 s), a mental arithmetic task (120 s) and a stress talk (120 s), each followed by a 120 s recovery period. HR, HRV, SCL, and ST were monitored continuously.
Sci Data
January 2025
Lab for Autonomic Neuroscience, Imaging and Cognition (LANIC), Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany.
Heart rate variability (HRV) is a key indicator of cardiac autonomic function, making reliable assessment crucial. To examine the test-retest stability of resting HRV in healthy individuals, fifty participants attended two lab sessions within a week, at the same time of day. After a 5-minute acclimatization period, electrocardiogram and respiration were recorded at rest.
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