Maturation of the autonomic nervous system: differences in heart rate variability in premature vs. term infants

Abstract

Maturation of the ANS is accompanied by increasing HRV with a pronounced increase of parasympathetic activity. These changes are measurable by short-term recordings. The physiological pulses concerning baroreceptor reflex activity and respiratory modulation were similar in prematures and term infants.

Effects of regional brain injury on the newborn autonomic nervous system

“…It is also associated with poor long-term neurodevelopmental outcome [9][10][11][12]. In our study, the extent of injury (i.e., number of regions) did not show significant direct correlation with HRV, and yet the location of injury did.…”

“…In the newborn, several studies have demonstrated that decreased HRV is an indicator of ANS dysfunction and is linked to poor short-term outcome measures such as neonatal survival and the rate of neonatal complications [5,[8][9][10]. It is also associated with poor long-term neurodevelopmental outcome [9][10][11][12].…”

“…Previous studies in fetuses and in neonates have linked decreased HRV to adverse outcome in various disease states [3][4][5][6][7][8] and to a worse long-term neurodevelopmental outcome [9][10][11][12].…”

Infrared thermography for detailed registration of thermoregulation in premature infants

“…One of the first steps is peripheral vasoconstriction [20] which was found diminished or abolished in very low birth weight infants during the first days of life [15,18,20,23] , but returns to normal with increasing chronological age [20,23,24] . In contrast to the parasympathetic system [20,21] , the sympathetic system, mainly responsible for vasomotor control, develops slower [11,20] . This could be one of the explanations where a large body area, such as the head in this case was found to warm-up during SSC (Figures 3 and 4), but failed to keep its temperature in I2.…”

Physiological vital sign ranges in newborns from 34 weeks gestation: A systematic review

“…That is, the authors of only two studies examined late preterm population and only one examined newborns >30 weeks gestation. It has been documented that there are several variables which contribute to physiological variation in vital signs such as gestation age, 30,45,50 sex, 16,18 vital signs, [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24] and activity. 16,29,51 This suggests that a universal reference range for newborns is problematic, as it does not reflect the complex interplay of variables that impact on clinical wellbeing.…”