Neurovisceral interactions in individual and phylogenetic development

Abstract

The article provides a review of experimental studies exploring the nature of neurovisceral interactions through the analysis of heart rate variability at different stages of individual development and within different species. Analysis of heart rate variability is one of the most common and accessible experimental methods to observe aspects of neurovisceral (for example, neurocardiac) interactions. Nonstationary, nonlinear components in the dynamics of inter-beat intervals (periods between adjacent heart beats) reflect the processes of coordination of heart activity with changes in the organization of neural activity, ensuring the current relationship of the individual with the environment. Mathematically, these aspects of heart rate dynamics are expressed in estimates of the complexity, irregularity, entropy, and unpredictability of the time sequence of inter-beat intervals. The dynamics of neurocardiac interactions described in this way are not the same in different species and become more complex in phylogeny. Similarly, in individual development, the dynamics of the heart rate becomes more complex and reflects, among other things, the degree of maturation of certain nervous structures at different stages of ontogenesis. We examined the features of the dynamics of neurovisceral interactions in individual and phylogenetic development within the framework of the system-evolution theory and interpreted them in connection with changes in the structure of individual experience – the characteristics of a set of functional systems actualized in behavior (increasing differentiation of the relationship between the individual and the environment).