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Cardiac sympathetic activity during recovery as an indicator of sympathetic activity during task performance
Author(s) -
Czarnek Gabriela,
Richter Michael,
Strojny Paweł
Publication year - 2021
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/psyp.13724
Subject(s) - sympathetic activity , task (project management) , sympathetic nervous system , psychology , cardiology , medicine , heart rate , blood pressure , management , economics
The goals of this research were to analyze cardiac sympathetic recovery patterns and evaluate whether sympathetic cardiac responses to a task challenge can be predicted using residual cardiac activity measured directly after the task (that is, during the recovery period). In two studies (total N = 181), we measured cardiac sympathetic activity, quantified as pre‐ejection period and RB interval, during both task performance and the 2‐min recovery period following the task. Additional analyses examined effects on the RZ interval. We found that sympathetic recovery from a task was rather quick: Cardiovascular recovery occurred within the first 30 s of the recovery period. Nevertheless, residual cardiac activity during the recovery period had predictive power for task‐related cardiac activity. This suggests that sympathetic cardiac activity during recovery may serve as a useful indicator of task‐related cardiac sympathetic activity. We discuss the implications of these findings for practical applications and the design of future studies.