Heart Rate Variability Analysis: A Useful Tool to Assess Poststroke Cardiac Dysautonomia

Background: Neurogenic heart syndrome represents a phenomenon often encountered in clinical practice after ischemic stroke. Further poststroke cardiovascular complications are possibly related to cardiac autonomic dysregulation. Multiple Trigonometric Regressive Spectral (MTRS) analysis of the heart rate variability (HRV) allows a precise evaluation of cardiovascular modulation under different conditions. Objectives: This research aims to evaluate the impact of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) ischemic stroke on cardiac autonomic function, using the MTRS analysis of HRV, during sympathetic and parasympathetic activation tests. Methods: The authors analyzed HRV parameters in 20 patients who had a right and 20 who had a left MCA ischemic stroke, under rest condition and during autonomic activation tests (deep breathing and standing tests). Data were compared with 20 age-matched and sex-matched healthy controls. Results: Patients who had a right MCA ischemic stroke presented a decreased vagal modulation of the heart rate compared with healthy controls and patients who had a left MCA ischemic stroke, in resting state and during autonomic activation tests. Decreased root mean square of the successive differences, pNN50, high frequency, and high-frequency normalized units values (P
Source: The Neurologist - Category: Neurology Tags: Original Articles Source Type: research