The relationships between heart rate variability and cardiovascular reactivity

Abstract

A key function of the autonomic nervous system is to alter physiological variables, such as heart rate and blood pressure, in order to accommodate changes in the body due to stressful or relaxing situations. Research in both the fields of heart rate variability and cardiovascular reactivity have studied the physiological effects of many different tasks, such as mental arithmetic. Very few studies, however, have investigated whether there is a correlation between heart rate variability and cardiovascular reactivity measurements. The main objective of the present study is to gain further insight about the relationships between noninvasive measures of parasympathetic activity and cardiovascular reactivity. In order to better fulfill this objective, aspects of data analysis techniques, experimental designs and protocols for the present study are changed from those used in previous research.