Abstract
The neural regulation of cardiac function is mainly determined, on its efferent side, by the interaction of sympathetic and vagal mechanisms. In most physiological conditions, the activation of either the sympathetic or vagal outflow is accompanied by the inhibition of the other suggesting the concept of sympatho-vagal balance as a horizontal beam pivoted at its center. This reciprocal organization, alluding to a synergistic design, seems instrumental to the fact that sympathetic excitation and simultaneous vagal inhibition, or vice versa, are both presumed to contribute to the increase or decrease in cardiac performance required for the various behaviors. The balance oscillates from states of quiescence, when homeostatic negative feedback reflexes predominate, to states of excitation, such as those due to emotion or physical exercise. However, this neural activity is not limited to peripheral regulation but it is able to deeply modify cortical circuitry related to stress responses and sleep homeostasis, as well as the immune system. As described in this chapter, the assessment of sympatho-vagal balance is a useful noninvasive tool to infer information about the state of the autonomic nervous system modulating the viscera and stress coping systems.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Akselrod S, Gordon D, Ubel FA, Shannon DC, Berger AC, Cohen RJ (1981) Power spectrum analysis of heart rate fluctuation: a quantitative probe of beat-to-beat cardiovascular control. Science 213(4504):220–222
Baevsky RM, Moser M, Nikulina GA, Polyakov VV, Funtova II, Chernikova AG (1998) Autonomic regulation of circulation and cardiac contractility during a 14-month space flight. Acta Astronaut 42(1–8):159–173
Beckers F, Seps B, Ramaekers D, Verheyden B, Aubert AE (2003) Parasympathetic heart rate modulation during parabolic flights. Eur J Appl Physiol 90(1–2):83–91
Bellinger DL, Millar BA, Perez S et al (2008) Sympathetic modulation of immunity: relevance to disease. Cell Immunol 252(1–2):27–56
Cooke WH, Ames JE IV, Crossman AA, Cox JF, Kuusela TA, Tahvanainen KU, Moon LB, Drescher J, Baisch FJ, Mano T, Levine BD, Blomqvist CG, Eckberg DL (2000) Nine months in space: effects on human autonomic cardiovascular regulation. J Appl Physiol 89(3):1039–1045
Coupé M, Fortrat JO, Larina I, Gauquelin-Koch G, Gharib C, Custaud MA (2009) Cardiovascular deconditioning: from autonomic nervous system to microvascular dysfunctions. Respir Physiol Neurobiol 169(Suppl 1):S10–S12
Crandall CG, Engelke KA, Pawelczyk JA, Raven PB, Convertino VA (1994) Power spectral and time based analysis of heart rate variability following 15 days head-down bed rest. Aviat Space Environ Med 65(12):1105–1109
Eckberg DL, Neurolab Autonomic Nervous System Team (2003) Bursting into space: alterations of sympathetic control by space travel. Acta Physiol Scand 177(3):299–311
Eckberg DL, Halliwill JR, Beightol LA, Brown TE, Taylor JA, Goble R (2010) Human vagal baroreflex mechanisms in space. J Physiol 588(Pt 7):1129–1138
Esler M (1993) Clinical application of noradrenaline spillover methodology: delineation of regional human sympathetic nervous responses. Pharmacol Toxicol 73:243–253
Ferretti G, Iellamo F, Pizzinelli P, Kenfack MA, Lador F, Lucini D, Porta A, Narkiewicz K, Pagani M (2009) Prolonged head down bed rest-induced inactivity impairs tonic autonomic regulation while sparing oscillatory cardiovascular rhythms in healthy humans. J Hypertens 27(3):551–561
Fritsch-Yelle JM, Charles JB, Jones MM, Beightol LA, Eckberg DL (1994) Spaceflight alters autonomic regulation of arterial pressure in humans. J Appl Physiol 77(4):1776–1783
Fritsch-Yelle JM, Whitson PA, Bondar RL, Brown TE (1996) Subnormal norepinephrine release relates to presyncope in astronauts after spaceflight. J Appl Physiol 81(5):2134–2141
Goldberger AL, West BJ (1987) Fractals in physiology and medicine. Yale J Biol Med 60(5):421–435
Goldberger AL, Rigney DR, Mietus J, Antman EM, Greenwald S (1988) Nonlinear dynamics in sudden cardiac death syndrome: heart rate oscillations and bifurcations. Experientia 44(11–12):983–987
Goldberger AL, Mietus JE, Rigney DR, Wood ML, Fortney SM (1994) Effects of head-down bed rest on complex heart rate variability: response to LBNP testing. J Appl Physiol 77(6):2863–2869
Goldstein DS, McCarty R, Polinsky RJ, Kopin IJ (1983) Relationship between plasma norepinephrine and sympathetic neural activity. Hypertension 5(4):552–559
Grassi G, Quarti-Trevano F, Seravalle G, Dell’Oro R (2007) Cardiovascular risk and adrenergic overdrive in the metabolic syndrome. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis 17:473–481
Gundel A, Drescher J, Spatenko YA, Polyakov VV (1999) Heart period and heart period variability during sleep on the MIR space station. J Sleep Res 8(1):37–43
Guzzetti S, Piccaluga E, Casati R, Cerutti S, Lombardi F, Pagani M, Malliani A (1988) Sympathetic predominance in essential hypertension: a study employing spectral analysis of heart rate variability. J Hypertens 6:711–717
Guzzetti S, Borroni E, Garbelli PE et al (2005) Symbolic dynamics of heart rate variability a probe to investigate cardiac autonomic modulation. Circulation 112:465–470
Hartikainen J, Tarkiainen I, Tahvanainen K, Mäntysaari M, Länsimies E, Pyörälä K (1993) Circadian variation of cardiac autonomic regulation during 24-h bed rest. Clin Physiol 13(2):185–196
Hirayanagi K, Iwase S, Kamiya A, Sasaki T, Mano T, Yajima K (2004) Functional changes in autonomic nervous system and baroreceptor reflex induced by 14 days of 6 degrees head-down bed rest. Eur J Appl Physiol 92(1–2):160–167
Huikuri HV, Mäkikallio TH, Peng CK, Goldberger AL, Hintze U, Møller M (2000) Fractal correlation properties of R-R interval dynamics and mortality in patients with depressed left ventricular function after an acute myocardial infarction. Circulation 101(1):47–53
Huikuri HV, Perkiömäki JS, Maestri R, Pinna GD (2009) Clinical impact of evaluation of cardiovascular control by novel methods of heart rate dynamics. Philos Transact A Math Phys Eng Sci 367(1892):1223–1238, Review
Hyndman BW, Kitney RI, Sayers BM (1971) Spontaneous rhythms in physiological control systems. Nature 233(5318):339–341
Iwase S, Mano T, Cui J, Kitazawa H, Kamiya A, Miyazaki S, Sugiyama Y, Mukai C, Kohno M, Nagaoka S (1998) Changes in muscle sympathetic nerve activity and effect of breathing maneuvers during microgravity induced by parabolic flight in humans. Environ Med 42(2):152–155
Iwase S, Mano T, Cui J, Kitazawa H, Kamiya A, Miyazaki S, Sugiyama Y, Mukai C, Nagaoka S (1999) Sympathetic outflow to muscle in humans during short periods of microgravity produced by parabolic flight. Am J Physiol 277(2 Pt 2):R419–R426
Kamiya A, Iwase S, Kitazawa H, Mano T (1999) Muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) after 120 days of 6 degrees head-down bed rest (HDBR). Environ Med 43(2):150–152
Kamiya A, Michikami D, Fu Q, Iwase S, Hayano J, Kawada T, Mano T, Sunagawa K (2003) Pathophysiology of orthostatic hypotension after bed rest: paradoxical sympathetic withdrawal. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 285(3):H1158–H1167
Kaplan DT, Furman MI, Pincus SM, Ryan SM, Lipsitz LA, Goldberger AL (1991) Aging and the complexity of cardiovascular dynamics. Biophys J 59(4):945–949
Kato M, Adachi T, Koshino Y, Somers VK (2009) Obstructive sleep apnea and cardiovascular disease. Circ J 73(8):1363–1370, Review
Kleiger RE (1987) Decreased heart rate variability and its association with increased mortality after acute myocardial infarction. Am J Cardiol 59:256–262
Lee ST, Hon EH (1965) The fetal electrocardiogram. iv. Unusual variations in the qrs complex during labor. Am J Obstet Gynecol 92:1140–1148
Legramante JM, Raimondi G, Massaro M, Cassarino S, Peruzzi G, Iellamo F (1999) Investigating feed-forward neural regulation of circulation from analysis of spontaneous arterial pressure and heart rate fluctuations. Circulation 99:1760–1766
Lipnicki DM (2009) Baroreceptor activity potentially facilitates cortical inhibition in zero gravity. Neuroimage 46(1):10–11
Lombardi F (1986) Acute myocardial ischaemia, neural reflexes and ventricular arrhythmias. Eur Heart J 7(Suppl A):91–97
Maestri R, Pinna GD, Accardo A, Allegrini P, Balocchi R, D’Addio G, Ferrario M, Menicucci D, Porta A, Sassi R, Signorini MG, La Rovere MT, Cerutti S (2007) Nonlinear indices of heart rate variability in chronic heart failure patients: redundancy and comparative clinical value. J Cardiovasc Electrophysiol 18(4):425–433
Mäkikallio TH, Seppänen T, Airaksinen KE, Koistinen J, Tulppo MP, Peng CK, Goldberger AL, Huikuri HV (1997) Dynamic analysis of heart rate may predict subsequent ventricular tachycardia after myocardial infarction. Am J Cardiol 80(6):779–783
Mäkikallio TH, Tapanainen JM, Tulppo MP, Huikuri HV (2002) Clinical applicability of heart rate variability analysis by methods based on nonlinear dynamics. Card Electrophysiol Rev 6(3):250–255, Review
Malik M (1989) Heart rate variability in relation to prognosis after myocardial infarction: selection of optimal processing techniques. Eur Heart J 10:1060–1074
Malliani A (2000) Principles of cardiovascular neural regulation in health and disease. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston/Dordrecht/London
Malliani A, Montano N (2002) Emerging excitatory role of cardiovascular sympathetic afferents in pathophysiological conditions. Hypertension 39(1):63–68
Malliani A, Pagani M, Lombardi F, Cerutti S (1991) Cardiovascular neural regulation explored in the frequency domain. Circulation 84(2):482–492, Review
Mano T (2005) Autonomic neural functions in space. Curr Pharm Biotechnol 6(4):319–324
Meck JV, Waters WW, Ziegler MG, deBlock HF, Mills PJ, Robertson D, Huang PL (2004) Mechanisms of postspaceflight orthostatic hypotension: low alpha1-adrenergic receptor responses before flight and central autonomic dysregulation postflight. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 286(4):H1486–H1495
Migeotte PF, Prisk GK, Paiva M (2003) Microgravity alters respiratory sinus arrhythmia and short-term heart rate variability in humans. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 284(6):H1995–H2006
Montano N, Porta A, Cogliati C, Costantino G, Tobaldini E, Casali KR, Iellamo F (2009) Heart rate variability explored in the frequency domain: a tool to investigate the link between heart and behavior. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 33(2):71–80
Narkiewicz K, Somers VK (2003) Sympathetic nerve activity in obstructive sleep apnoea. Acta Physiol Scand 177(3):385–390
Pagani M, Lucini D (2001) Autonomic dysregulation in essential hypertension: insight from heart rate and arterial pressure variability. Auton Neurosci 90(1–2):76–82
Pagani M, Lombardi F, Rimoldi O, Furlan R, Pizzinelli P, Sandrone G, Malfatto G, Dell’Orto S, Piccaluga E et al (1986) Power spectral analysis of heart rate and arterial pressure variabilities as a marker of sympatho-vagal interaction in man and conscious dog. Circ Res 59(2):178–193
Paton JFR, Boscan P, Pickering AE, Nalivaiko E (2005) The yin and yang of cardiac autonomic control: vago-sympathetic interactions revisited. Brain Res Rev 49:555–565
Peng CK, Havlin S, Stanley HE, Goldberger AL (1995) Quantification of scaling exponents and crossover phenomena in nonstationary heartbeat time series. Chaos 5(1):82–87
Pincus SM (1991) Approximate entropy as a measure of system complexity. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 88(6):2297–2301
Pincus SM, Goldberger AL (1994) Physiological time-series analysis: What does regularity quantify? Am J Physiol 266:H1643–H1656
Porta A, Guzzetti S, Montano N, Furlan R, Pagani M, Malliani A, Cerutti S (2001) Entropy, entropy rate, and pattern classification as tools to typify complexity in short heart period variability series. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 48(11):1282–1291
Porta A, Guzzetti S, Furlan R, Gnecchi-Ruscone T, Montano N, Malliani A (2007a) Complexity and nonlinearity in short-term heart period variability: comparison of methods based on local nonlinear prediction. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 54(1):94–106
Porta A, Faes L, Masé M, D’Addio G, Pinna GD, Maestri R, Montano N, Furlan R, Guzzetti S, Nollo G, Malliani A (2007b) An integrated approach based on uniform quantization for the evaluation of complexity of short-term heart period variability: application to 24 h holter recordings in healthy and heart failure humans. Chaos 17(1):015117
Porta A, Tobaldini E, Guzzetti S, Furlan R, Montano N, Gnecchi-Ruscone T (2007c) Assessment of cardiac autonomic modulation during graded head-up tilt by symbolic analysis of heart rate variability. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 293(1):H702–H708
Porta A, Gnecchi-Ruscone T, Tobaldini E, Guzzetti S, Furlan R, Montano N (2007d) Progressive decrease of heart period variability entropy-based complexity during graded head-up tilt. J Appl Physiol 103(4):1143–1149
Pump B, Videbaek R, Gabrielsen A, Norsk P (1999) Arterial pressure in humans during weightlessness induced by parabolic flights. J Appl Physiol 87(3):928–932
Sayers BM (1973) Analysis of heart rate variability. Ergonomics 16(1):17–32
Schlegel TT, Brown TE, Wood SJ, Benavides EW, Bondar RL, Stein F, Moradshahi P, Harm DL, Fritsch-Yelle JM, Low PA (2001) Orthostatic intolerance and motion sickness after parabolic flight. J Appl Physiol 90(1):67–82
Seps B, Beckers F, Aubert AE (2002) Heart rate variability during gravity transitions. Comput Cardiol 29:433–436
Shiraishi M, Kamo T, Kamegai M, Baevsky RM, Funtova II, Chernikova A, Nemoto S, Hotta M, Nomura Y, Suzuki T (2004) Periodic structures and diurnal variation in blood pressure and heart rate in relation to microgravity on space station MIR. Biomed Pharmacother 58(Suppl 1):S31–S34
Sigaudo-Roussel D, Custaud MA, Maillet A, Güell A, Kaspranski R, Hughson RL, Gharib C, Fortrat JO (2002) Heart rate variability after prolonged spaceflights. Eur J Appl Physiol 86(3):258–265
Sternberg EM (2006) Neural regulation of innate immunity: a coordinated nonspecific host response to pathogens. Nat Rev Immunol 6:318–328
Stowe RP, Mehta SK, Ferrando AA, Feeback DL, Pierson DL (2001) Immune responses and latent herpesvirus reactivation in spaceflight. Aviat Space Environ Med 72:884–889
Stowe RP, Sams CF, Pierson DL (2003) Effects of mission duration on neuroimmune responses in astronauts. Aviat Space Environ Med 74:1281–1284
Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology the North American Society of Pacing Electrophysiology (1996) Heart rate variability standards of measurement, physiological Âinterpretation, and clinical use. Circulation 93:1043–1065
Tracey KJ (2002) The inflammatory reflex. Nature 420:853–859
Tracey KJ (2009) Reflex control of immunity. Nat Rev Immunol 9(6):418–428, Review
Traon AP, Sigaudo D, Vasseur P, Maillet A, Fortrat JO, Hughson RL, Gauquelin-Koch G, Gharib C (1998) Cardiovascular responses to orthostatic stress after a 42-day head-down bed-rest. Eur J Appl Physiol Occup Physiol 77:50–59
Valbo AB, Hagbarth KE, Torebjörk HE, Wallin BG (1979) Somatosensory, proprioceptive, and sympathetic activity in human peripheral nerves. Physiol Rev 59:919–957
Verheyden B, Beckers F, Couckuyt K, Liu J, Aubert AE (2007) Respiratory modulation of cardiovascular rhythms before and after short-duration human spaceflight. Acta Physiol (Oxf) 191(4):297–308
Videbaek R, Norsk P (1997) Atrial distension in humans during microgravity induced by parabolic flights. J Appl Physiol 83(6):1862–1866
Voss A, Kurths J, Kleiner HJ, Witt A, Wessel N (1995) Improved analysis of heart rate variability by methods of nonlinear dynamics. J Electrocardiol 28(Suppl):81–88
Voss A, Schulz S, Schroeder R, Baumert M, Caminal P (2009) Methods derived from nonlinear dynamics for analysing heart rate variability. Philos Transact A Math Phys Eng Sci 367(1887):277–296, Review
Wallin BG, Charkoudian N (2007) Sympathetic neural control of integrated cardiovascular function: insights from measurement of human sympathetic nerve activity. Muscle Nerve 36:595–614
Wessel N, Schirdewan A, Malik M, Voss A (1998) Symbolic dynamics—an independent method for detecting nonlinear phenomena of heart rate regulation. Biomed Tech 43(Suppl):510–511
Wessel N, Voss A, Kurths J, Schirdewan A, Hnatkova K, Malik M (2000) Evaluation of renormalised entropy for risk stratification using heart rate variability data. Med Biol Eng Comput 38(6):680–685
Zucker IH (1996) Neural control of the circulation in heart failure and coronary ischaemia: introduction. Clin Exp Pharmacol Physiol 23:685–687
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Montano, N., Tobaldini, E., Porta, A. (2012). The Autonomic Nervous System. In: Chouker, A. (eds) Stress Challenges and Immunity in Space. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22272-6_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22272-6_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-22271-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-22272-6
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)