Heart rate and cardiac phase influences on visual perception.

Pain-related evoked potentials are modulated across the cardiac cycle

“…The modulating effect of the cardiac cycle on the brain appears not to be exclusive to nociception. Auditory and visual perception vary with the phase of the cardiac cycle: responses are generally slowest at the start of the cardiac cycle and quicken as the cycle progresses (Saxon, 1970;Sandman et al, 1977). Further, modulation of visual and auditory event-related potentials has been demonstrated during systole and diastole: the P1 component of the visual evoked potential (Walker and Sandman, 1982) and the N1 component of the auditory evoked potential (Sandman, 1984) were smaller during systole.…”

Interactions between cardiac activity and conscious somatosensory perception

“…In general, cardiac deceleration (i.e., a lengthening of the period between consecutive heartbeats) is known to occur in anticipation of a (cued) stimulus or in reaction to a salient stimulus (Lacey & Lacey, , ; Simons, ), and it is typically followed by cardiac acceleration after the behavioral response (e.g., Börger & van Meere, ; Park, Correia, Ducorps, & Tallon‐Baudry, ). While both spontaneous (Sandman et al, ) and conditioned (McCanne & Sandman, ) cardiac deceleration coincident with a visual stimulus was found to increase its detection, other—more recent—studies did not show a modulation of visual awareness by heart rate changes prior to and coincident with a near‐threshold stimulus (Cobos, Guerra, Vila, & Chica, ; Park et al, ).…”

“…There are conflicting findings as to what extent the cardiac cycle modulates the access of exteroceptive information to perceptual awareness. Earlier studies reported that the detection of visual (Réquin & Brouchon, ; Sandman, McCanne, Kaiser, & Diamond, ) and auditory signals (Saxon, ) vary for different points of the cardiac cycle. However, other studies in the visual (Elliott & Graf, ) and auditory domain (Delfini & Campos, ; Velden & Juris, ) did not find such variations.…”

“…The evidence for this hypothesis is mixed and comes only from studies in the auditory and visual domain: For auditory thresholds, there were no differences between transient periods of low and high heart rate (Edwards & Alsip, ) unless the procedure involved exercise‐induced changes in heart rate (Saxon & Dahle, ). In addition to such heart rate variations over longer periods of time, quick changes from one heartbeat to the next were suggested to modulate perception (Lacey & Lacey, ; Sandman et al, ). In general, cardiac deceleration (i.e., a lengthening of the period between consecutive heartbeats) is known to occur in anticipation of a (cued) stimulus or in reaction to a salient stimulus (Lacey & Lacey, , ; Simons, ), and it is typically followed by cardiac acceleration after the behavioral response (e.g., Börger & van Meere, ; Park, Correia, Ducorps, & Tallon‐Baudry, ).…”

“…The association between cardiac activity and perception was also related to cardiac‐phase independent variations in arterial pressure after changes in heart rate (Sandman et al, ). In this view, the late phase of the cardiac cycle (i.e., diastole) and cardiac deceleration result in—similar but not identical—transient decreases in blood pressure, thus facilitating the access of external stimuli to consciousness by decreasing the inhibitory effects of baroreceptor activity on the brain (Sandman, ; Sandman et al, ).…”