Gender peculiarities of heart rate variability and hemodynamic basis of students’ educational activity

Abstract

Aim of this study is to analyze gender peculiarities of physiological and psychophysical basis of students’ academic activity.
 Materials and Methods. 32 medical students (16 men and 16 women, 19-22 years) were examined. Students were proposed an alternative method of a colloquium on normal physiology in the form of a computer test. The test consisted of 30 questions, time of testing was not limited. The test was considered to be done if the number of correct answers was 50% or more. Examination of students’ heart rhythm, hemodynamic, and psychological parameters was conducted before and immediately after the test. Cardio-intervalogram was recorded within 5 minutes using Varicard hardware-software complex. The Students t-test, Mann-Whitney analysis, Wilcoxon analysis were used to determine the significance of differences between parameters among and within groups of men and women. Relationships of the studied parameters were determined using Spearman’s method of rank correlation.
 Results. It was demonstrated that fulfilment of the test by men was associated with reduction of hemodynamic parameters, with reduction of parasympathetic component and activation of sympathetic suprasegmental and central mechanisms of regulation of heart rhythm. Women showed stability of hemodynamic parameters and increase in suprasegmental influences on the dynamics of heart rhythm with lower average values. In correlation analysis conjugated pairs were found with the two components being different psychophysiological and physiological parameters, time and effectiveness of fulfilment of the test. The total number of conjugated and stable parameters were higher in women than in men both before and after computer testing.
 Conclusions. Gender peculiarities of hemodynamic basis of academic activity of students were found. The described dynamics can be considered a manifestation of a higher stability and relatively lower mobility of regulatory mechanisms in women.

Anxiety and heart rate in a real-life class test in undergraduates choosing real-time or prerecorded oral presentations

“…In this study, female students exhibited overall higher state anxiety, HR, and test anxiety than male students. These findings agree with other works that women generally exhibit greater test anxiety than men (e.g., Chapell et al 2005;Núñez-Peña et al 2016;Pagaria 2020) HR (e.g., Biryukova et al 2019;Hammoud et al 2018) and state anxiety (e.g., Endler et al 1994;Saltürk and Güngör 2021). The possible interpretations are that women are more anxious about their examination performance, as also indicated by their higher overall HR values (Fig.…”