Covariation of phasic cortical and cardiovascular responses in a detection task

The relationship between cardiovascular and cortical responses was examined in an experiment in which subjects performed a detection task and a simple reference task. The detection task was developed according to Skinner et al., (1987). Cortical activity was examined with event related brain potentials (ERPs). ERPs revealed more cortical activation during detection task blocks. Both tonic and phasic measures of cardiovascular activity were derived. Tonic measures were heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP). T-wave amplitude (TWA), respiration linked HR-variability and a measure for baroreflex sensitivity. These measures revealed no important differences between the reference task and detection task blocks. Phasic cardiovascular measures were evoked HR, SBP and TWA. Evoked HR showed a larger deceleration and evoked SBP showed a smaller decrease on detection task blocks. Evoked TWA did not differentiate between both types of task. It is concluded that an adjusted version of the fronto-cortical control hypothesis of Skinner could best account for the data.