Spectral and symbolic analysis of the effect of gender and postural change on cardiac autonomic modulation in healthy elderly subjects

Effect of the Postural Challenge on the Dependence of the Cardiovascular Control Complexity on Age

“…It appears that the ability to synchronize several control mechanisms via a sympathetic activation was more importantly lost in women than in men. We speculate that the reduction of estrogen during menopause leads to a higher sympathetic tone at REST [20,21] and, thus, to a cardiovascular control less fit to react to the change of posture.…”

“…Previous studies have reported that gender is one of the factors that influence cardiovascular autonomic regulation. Differences in adrenoreceptor responsiveness, arterial baroreflex sensitivity, cardiopulmonary baroreflex, and cardiac vagal and sympathetic activity and/or modulation [20,[36][37][38][39][40] contribute to differentiating the cardiovascular control of men and women. These differences might play a role in the different relation of complexity of the cardiac control with age.…”

“…These changes are mirrored by a reduction in heart period (HP) variability [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9], by an increase of systolic blood pressure (SAP) variability [10][11][12], and by a reduction in complexity of physiological dynamics [2][3][4][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Although the abovementioned studies indicate that aging reduces the complexity of the cardiovascular control and prove the gender dependence, it is still unclear whether the complexity reduction and the gender relation are similarly observable from HP and SAP variabilities and if it persists during a cardiovascular control challenge.…”

“…Although the abovementioned studies indicate that aging reduces the complexity of the cardiovascular control and prove the gender dependence, it is still unclear whether the complexity reduction and the gender relation are similarly observable from HP and SAP variabilities and if it persists during a cardiovascular control challenge. Indeed, protocols assessing the effect of aging on the complexity of the cardiovascular control are mainly limited to the evaluation of the complexity of the HP variability [13][14][15][19][20][21][22][23] and mostly do not deliberately challenge the cardiovascular control according to an experimental maneuver or pharmacological intervention [13][14][15][16][17][18][19]22,23]. In addition, those studies challenging autonomic nervous system regulation have a limited power because age ranges are inadequate [20] or they are mainly based on biased indexes of complexity such as approximate entropy [21].…”

Electrocardiographic Analysis of Heart Rate Variability in Aging Heart

“…Studies involving models of linear analysis showed that women presented higher HRV in the supine position than men of a similar age, indicating that the female population has a higher cardiac vagal modulation and a lower cardiac sympathetic modulation. Women demonstrate a more appropriate response to a postural change than the men even though women are postmenopausal, suggesting that autonomic heart rate modulation is better preserved in the women's group (Perseguini NM et al, 2011). Several studies have described a circadian pattern of cardiac autonomic modulation (Malpas SC & Purdie GL, 1990), which can be quantified with a cosine periodic regression model consisting of three cosine function parameters: mean (M), amplitude (Â), and acrophase (θ) (Rodríguez-Colón SM et al, 2010).…”