Heart rate and blood pressure variability: implications for psychiatric research

Symptoms of anxiety suggest autonomic dysfunction and most of the psychotropic agents used to treat anxiety and affective disorders have strong autonomic effects. This article describes the utility and importance of analysis of heart rate and blood pressure time series to study cardiac autonomic function in psychiatric research. The variability of heart rate between 0.15 and 0.5 Hz is related to respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and is modulated by cholinergic activity in both supine and standing postures, while the variability between 0.04 and 0.15 Hz is dually influenced by cholinergic and adrenergic mechanisms which can be used as a relative measure of sympathetic activity in standing posture. Analysis of beat-to-beat control of heart rate and blood pressure gives important information about cardiac sympathetic and parasympathetic interaction, which could be used to study the possible link between anxiety and depressive disorders and increased cardiovascular morbidity.