Abstract
Heart rate variability (HRV) has become an increasingly popular index of cardiac autonomic control in the biobehavioral sciences due to its relationship with mental illness and cognitive traits. However, the intraindividual stability of HRV in response to sleep and diurnal disturbances, which are commonly reported in mental illness, and its relationship with executive function are not well understood. Here, in 40 healthy adult males we calculated high frequency HRV—an index of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity—using pulse oximetry during brain imaging, and assessed attentional and executive function performance in a subsequent behavioral test session at three time points: morning, evening, and the following morning. Twenty participants were randomly selected for total sleep deprivation whereas the other 20 participants slept as normal. Sleep deprivation and morning-to-night variation did not influence high frequency HRV at either a group or individual level; however, sleep deprivation abolished the relationship between orienting attention performance and HRV. We conclude that a day of wake and a night of laboratory-induced sleep deprivation do not alter supine high frequency HRV in young healthy male adults.
Highlights
Heart rate variability (HRV) provides a non-invasive measure of cardiac parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) control [1, 2]
Between-subjects ANOVA revealed a main effect for group on HRV, with the data providing substantial support that the sleep-deprived group had higher HRV compared to the sleep group (Table 3, Fig 1A)
There was no main effect of time or time by group interaction, with the Bayes factors (BF) providing substantial evidence for the null hypotheses that HRV was not different across time and that there were no group by time interaction effects on HRV
Summary
Heart rate variability (HRV) provides a non-invasive measure of cardiac parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) control [1, 2]. HRV has been associated to specific psychiatric illness symptoms, such as social cognition [7, 8], executive function [9], and self-regulation [10]. Given the association with psychiatric symptoms across diagnoses, researchers have proposed that HRV may be a transdiagnostic symptom biomarker. HRV is fundamental to leading biobehavioral frameworks used to understand social behavior and psychiatric illness, the polyvagal theory [12] and the neurovisceral integration model [13]. To become a viable biomarker in studies of psychopathology, its intraindividual stability and variables that can modulate HRV need to be established
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