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Genetic influences on heart rate variability at rest and during stress
Author(s) -
Wang Xiaoling,
Ding Xiuhua,
Su Shaoyong,
Li Zhibin,
Riese Harriette,
Thayer Julian F.,
Treiber Frank,
Snieder Harold
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2009.00793.x
Subject(s) - heritability , heart rate variability , psychology , stressor , ethnic group , rest (music) , stress (linguistics) , medicine , heart rate , demography , developmental psychology , clinical psychology , genetics , biology , blood pressure , linguistics , philosophy , sociology , anthropology
We tested whether the heritability of heart rate variability (HRV) under stress is different from rest and its dependency on ethnicity or gender. HRV indexed by root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) and high‐frequency (HF) power was measured at rest and during 3 stressors in 427 European and 308 African American twins. No ethnic or gender differences were found for any measures. There was a nonsignificant increase in heritability of RMSSD (from 0.48 to 0.58) and HF (from 0.50 to 0.58) under stress. Up to 81% and 60% of the heritabilities of RMSSD and HF under stress could be attributed to genes influencing rest levels. The heritabilities due to genes expressed under stress were 0.11 for RMSSD and 0.23 for HF. The findings suggest that, independent of ethnicity and gender, HRV regulation at rest and under stress is largely influenced by the same genes with a small but significant contribution of stress‐specific genetic effects.