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Updated: Aug 19, 2026
Tilt Testing with Combined Lower Body Negative Pressure: a "Gold Standard" for Measuring Orthostatic Tolerance
Published on: March 21, 2013
Reproducibility of heart rate variability, blood pressure variability and baroreceptor sensitivity during rest and
Michael V Højgaard1, Niels-Henrik Holstein-Rathlou, Erik Agner
1Laboratory for Experimental Cardiology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. mvhojgaard@dadlnet.dk
Objective:
Previous studies have indicated moderate-to-poor reproducibility of heart rate variability (HRV) but the reproducibility of blood pressure variability (BPV) and spectral measures of baroreceptor sensitivity (BRS) are not well established.
Methods:
We measured normal-to-normal heart beat (RR) interval and finger blood pressure (Finapres) in 14 healthy individuals on three different days. The protocol was 1 h of supine rest and 1 h of 60-degree head-up tilt. Time-series of consecutive 300-s segments as well as 1024-s segments of RR intervals and systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressures were extracted for the assessment of day-to-day and short-term reproducibility. Power spectrum analysis (Fourier) and transfer function analysis was performed. Reproducibility was assessed using the coefficient of variation (CV). The reproducibility of the mean RR interval, mean systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressure was good (CV<10 %). However, there was only moderate-to-poor reproducibility of the spectral parameters of HRV (CV range 18-36%) and BPV (16-44%) and moderate reproducibility of BRS (14-20%).
Conclusion:
Spectral estimates of BRS had only moderate reproducibility although it was better than the spectral estimates of HRV and BPV.
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