Carnevali, Luca and Trombini, Mimosa and Graiani, Gallia and Madeddu, Denise and Quaini, Federico and Landgraf, Rainer and Neumann, Inga D. and Nalivaiko, Eugene and Sgoifo, Andrea (2014) Low vagally-mediated heart rate variability and to ventricular arrhythmias in rats bred for high increased susceptibility anxiety. PHYSIOLOGY & BEHAVIOR, 128. pp. 16-25. ISSN 0031-9384,
Full text not available from this repository. (Request a copy)Abstract
In humans, there is a documented association between anxiety disorders and cardiovascular disease. Putative underlying mechanisms may include an impairment of the autonomic nervous system control of cardiac function. The primary objective of the present study was to characterize cardiac autonomic modulation and susceptibility to arrhythmias in genetic lines of rats that differ largely in their anxiety level. To reach this goal, electrocardiographic recordings were performed in high-anxiety behavior (HAB, n = 10) and low-anxiety behavior (LAB, n = 10) rats at rest, during stressful stimuli and under autonomic pharmacological manipulations, and analyzed by means of time- and frequency-domain indexes of heart rate variability. During resting conditions, HAB rats displayed a reduced heart rate variability, mostly in terms of lower parasympathetic (vagal) modulation compared to LAB rats. In HAB rats, this relatively low cardiac vagal control was associated with smaller heart rate responsiveness to acute stressors compared to LAB counterparts. In addition, beta-adrenergic pharmacological stimulation induced a larger incidence of ventricular tachyarrhythmias in HABs compared to LABs. At sacrifice, a moderate increase in heart-body weight ratio was observed in HAB rats. We conclude that high levels of anxiety-related behavior in rats are associated with signs of i) impaired autonomic modulation of heart rate (low vagally-mediated heart rate variability), ii) poor adaptive heart rate responsiveness to stressful stimuli, ill) increased arrhythmia susceptibility, and iv) cardiac hypertrophy. These results highlight the utility of the HAB/LAB model for investigating the mechanistic basis of the comorbidity between anxiety disorders and cardiovascular disease. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | TRAIT ANXIETY; CARDIOVASCULAR-DISEASE; MYOCARDIAL-INFARCTION; MATERNAL SEPARATION; COPING STYLES; SOCIAL STRESS; MORTALITY; MODEL; TONE; SENSITIVITY; Anxiety; Heart rate variability; Autonomic nervous system; Arrhythmias; Cardiac structure |
| Subjects: | 500 Science > 590 Zoological sciences |
| Divisions: | Biology, Preclinical Medicine > Institut für Zoologie > Tierphysiologie/Neurobiologie (Prof. Dr. Inga Neumann) |
| Depositing User: | Dr. Gernot Deinzer |
| Date Deposited: | 14 Nov 2019 10:06 |
| Last Modified: | 14 Nov 2019 10:06 |
| URI: | https://pred.uni-regensburg.de/id/eprint/10316 |
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