Heart rate variability in bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder: a clinical review

Abstract

Heart rate variability (HRV) in psychiatric disorders has become an increasing area of interest in recent years following technological advances that enable non-invasive monitoring of autonomic nervous system regulation. However, the clinical interpretation of HRV features remain widely debated or unknown. Standardisation within studies of HRV in psychiatric disorders is poor, making it difficult to reproduce or build on previous work. Recently, a Guidelines for Reporting Articles on Psychiatry and Heart rate variability checklist has been proposed to address this issue. Here we assess studies of HRV in bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder against this checklist and discuss the implication for ongoing research in this area.

Influence of the Water-Drinking Test on Intraocular Pressure, Schlemm's Canal, and Autonomic Nervous System Activity

“…HF specifically reflects parasympathetic nervous system activity, whereas very-low-frequency and lowfrequency are attributed to the combined sympathetic and parasympathetic influence, although this interpretation is widely debated. 34 A recent study has demonstrated that a shorter recording period (5 minutes) can provide equally reliable information as 24-hour RÀR interval recordings. Therefore, we used short ECG segments lasting 5 minutes in our research.…”

Reduced heart rate variability is associated with vulnerability to depression

“…These findings are in line with the extensive literature that described reduced HRV as a transdiagnostic correlate of psychopathology. As a matter of fact, reduced HRV was also observed in bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (Carr et al, 2018;Smith et al, 2020). A reason for this is that HRV reflects, albeit peripherally, prefrontal cortex functioning and, therefore, captures the psychophysiological vulnerability that many psychopathologies share (Beauchaine and Thayer, 2015).…”

Pattern Recognition of Cognitive Load Using EEG and ECG Signals

“…In order to quantify the ANS activity, we extracted 27 linear and nonlinear parameters from the RR interval series as features of cognitive load conditions. These parameters were commonly applied to HRV analysis in literature [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]. Besides, six commonly used EEG parameters which measured the central nervous system (CNS) activity, e.g., powers of sub-band brainwaves [ 34 ], were also applied as features of cognitive load conditions.…”

“…The original 27 HRV parameters and 6 EEG parameters were commonly applied to the analysis of ANS and CNS activities in literature [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 ]. However, they are not specific to the pattern recognition of cognitive load conditions.…”