Premium
Low‐frequency power of heart rate variability is not a measure of cardiac sympathetic tone but may be a measure of modulation of cardiac autonomic outflows by baroreflexes
Author(s) -
Goldstein David S.,
Bentho Oladi,
Park MeeYeong,
Sharabi Yehonatan
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
experimental physiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.925
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1469-445X
pISSN - 0958-0670
DOI - 10.1113/expphysiol.2010.056259
Subject(s) - baroreflex , heart rate variability , heart rate , medicine , cardiology , cardiac function curve , autonomic nervous system , autonomic function , blood pressure , heart failure
Power spectral analysis of heart rate variability has often been used to assess cardiac autonomic function; however, the relationship of low‐frequency (LF) power of heart rate variability to cardiac sympathetic tone has been unclear. With or without adjustment for high‐frequency (HF) power, total power or respiration, LF power seems to provide an index not of cardiac sympathetic tone but of baroreflex function. Manipulations and drugs that change LF power or LF:HF may do so not by affecting cardiac autonomic outflows directly but by affecting modulation of those outflows by baroreflexes.