Cardiac acceleration as a marker of vagal withdrawal in heart rate control during exercise in humans

To investigate whether the time rate of change in heart rate i.e. cardiac acceleration, during aerobic exercise in human subjects could be used to differentiate vagal withdrawal from sympathetic stimulation.

Fifteen male subjects exercised on a bicycle ergometer at 50 Watts (Step 1), then 100 Watts (Step 2), for 2 minutes each.

Heart rate (HR) was monitored from a resting value (mean +/- SD) of 80.3 +/- 12.9 to 113.8 +/- 13.6 beats min-1 in Step 1. In Step 2 exercise, HR increased from 113.8 +/- 13.6 to 145 +/- 20 beats min-1. At the initiation of Step 1, a rapid acceleration of HR was observed in the form of an overshoot response. In contrast to Step 1, a small overshoot response of cardiac acceleration was observed during Step 2. The difference between the mean cardiac acceleration at 10 seconds in Steps 1 and 2 was significant (2.40 +/- 0.19 and 0.71 +/- 0.12 beats min-1 sec-1, p<0.0001).

The initial vagal withdrawal of exercise-induced tachycardia, as a frontline adaptive mechanism, can be indirectly identified from HR transients using cardiac acceleration as a new marker.