scholarly journals New Measures of Heart Rate Variability Based on Subband Tachogram Complexity and Spectral Characteristics for Improved Stress and Anxiety Monitoring in Highly Ecological Settings

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abhishek Tiwari ◽  
Tiago H. Falk

Prediction of mental states, such as stress and anxiety, can be important in situations where reduced job performance due to increased mental strain can lead to critical situations (e.g., front-line healthcare workers and first responders). While recent advances in biomedical wearable sensor technologies have allowed for collection of multiple physiological signals in everyday environments, numerous challenges emerge from such uncontrolled settings, including increased noise levels and artifacts, confounding effects from other psychological states (e.g., mental fatigue), as well as physical variables (e.g., physical activity). These factors can be particularly detrimental for heart rate variability (HRV) measures which, in controlled settings, have been shown to accurately track stress and anxiety states. In this paper, we propose two new ways of computing HRV proxies which we show are more robust to such artifacts and confounding factors. The proposed features measure spectral and complexity properties of different aspects of the autonomic nervous system, as well as their interaction. Across two separate “in-the-wild” datasets, the proposed features showed to not only outperform benchmark HRV metrics, but to also provide complementary information, thus leading to significantly greater accuracy levels when fused together. Feature ranking analysis further showed the proposed features appearing in 45–64% of the top features, thus further emphasizing their importance. In particular, features derived from the high frequency band showed to be most important in the presence of fatigue and physical activity confounding factors, thus corroborating their importance for mental state assessment in highly ecological settings.

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 247054702110003
Author(s):  
Megan Chesnut ◽  
Sahar Harati ◽  
Pablo Paredes ◽  
Yasser Khan ◽  
Amir Foudeh ◽  
...  

Depression and anxiety disrupt daily function and their effects can be long-lasting and devastating, yet there are no established physiological indicators that can be used to predict onset, diagnose, or target treatments. In this review, we conceptualize depression and anxiety as maladaptive responses to repetitive stress. We provide an overview of the role of chronic stress in depression and anxiety and a review of current knowledge on objective stress indicators of depression and anxiety. We focused on cortisol, heart rate variability and skin conductance that have been well studied in depression and anxiety and implicated in clinical emotional states. A targeted PubMed search was undertaken prioritizing meta-analyses that have linked depression and anxiety to cortisol, heart rate variability and skin conductance. Consistent findings include reduced heart rate variability across depression and anxiety, reduced tonic and phasic skin conductance in depression, and elevated cortisol at different times of day and across the day in depression. We then provide a brief overview of neural circuit disruptions that characterize particular types of depression and anxiety. We also include an illustrative analysis using predictive models to determine how stress markers contribute to specific subgroups of symptoms and how neural circuits add meaningfully to this prediction. For this, we implemented a tree-based multi-class classification model with physiological markers of heart rate variability as predictors and four symptom subtypes, including normative mood, as target variables. We achieved 40% accuracy on the validation set. We then added the neural circuit measures into our predictor set to identify the combination of neural circuit dysfunctions and physiological markers that accurately predict each symptom subtype. Achieving 54% accuracy suggested a strong relationship between those neural-physiological predictors and the mental states that characterize each subtype. Further work to elucidate the complex relationships between physiological markers, neural circuit dysfunction and resulting symptoms would advance our understanding of the pathophysiological pathways underlying depression and anxiety.


2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 212-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Athanasios Kyriakides ◽  
Dimitrios Poulikakos ◽  
Angeliki Galata ◽  
Dimitrios Konstantinou ◽  
Elias Panagiotopoulos ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-70
Author(s):  
Felipe de Ornelas ◽  
Danilo Rodrigues Batista ◽  
Vlademir Meneghel ◽  
Wellington Gonçalves Dias ◽  
Guilherme Borsetti Businari ◽  
...  

Physical inactivity is main cause of disease worldwide. Identify the physical exercise preference, resulting in increases adherence and future intention to perform physical activity. The preference of the intensity of exercise questionnaire (PRETIE-Q) is the main tool used to assess preference in physical exercise. Variables as age, body mass index (BMI), usual physical activity level (PAL), maximal oxygen uptake (VO2máx), can influence in PRETIE-Q answers. The purpose of this study was investigate if there is relation between preference for exercise intensity with maximal aerobic speed (MAS), PAL and heart rate variability (HRV) in postmenopausal women phase. Participated of study 30 subjects who answer PRETIE-Q together with analyses of MAS, PAL and HRV. Preference was large correlated with MAS (r = 0.63), PAL (r = 0.57) and HRVRMSSD (r = 0.52). Together, MAS (40.4%), PAL (10.7%) and HRVRMSSD (6.4%) explained 57.5% of the preference score. This results study allow to health professional, that prescribe physical exercise, understand that subjects with high aerobic capacity, cardiovagal modulation and usual PAL will have preference for high intensity exercise. In consequence, can increase the adherence to systematic practice of physical exercise. Conclude that preference of exercise intensity for women in postmenopausal phase is related with aerobic capacity, high HRV and physical activity level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S874-S874
Author(s):  
Eunji Kwon ◽  
Eunhee Cho

Abstract Demented older adults experience many internal and external stress inducers that are thought to be a source of behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia(BPSD). The purpose of this study was to compare the stress index among older adults through salivary cortisol levels and physical stress index. This study was cross-sectional design, including 139 participants who recruited until May of this year(104 demented older adults who visited hospital outpatient neurology and 35 non-demented older adults as control group). The physical stress index was measured by heart rate variability and salivary cortisol levels(4 samples/day, 1 days). Salivary cortisol levels were measured at four times after wake up, after breakfast, before dinner and after dinner. The data were analyzed using independent t-test and generalized estimating equations. In salivary cortisol levels measured after wake up, the demented older adults reported about 1.5 times higher than non-demented older adults(p=.042). And the salivary cortisol levels measured after breakfast were about 2.3 times higher in the demented older adults than in control groups(p=.002). Accordingly, the results can be concluded that demented older adults have higher stress levels than control groups in the morning. Also the physical stress index through heart rate variability(HRV) in the demented older adults(6.30±0.65) had higher than control groups(6.00±0.55, t=2.45, p=.016). There are significant differences in salivary cortisol levels and physical stress index between demented older adults and control groups. As stress inducers affects BPSD for the demented older adults, nursing intervention should be tailored to proper way based on their stress inducers.


1999 ◽  
Vol 276 (6) ◽  
pp. R1724-R1731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seiichiro Sakata ◽  
Junichiro Hayano ◽  
Seiji Mukai ◽  
Akiyoshi Okada ◽  
Takao Fujinami

To examine whether heart rate variability (HRV) during daily life shows power law behavior independently of age and interindividual difference in the total power, log-log scaled coarse-graining spectra of the nonharmonic component of 24-h HRV were studied in 62 healthy men (age 21–79 yr). The spectra declined with increasing frequency in all subjects, but they appeared as broken lines slightly bending downward, particularly in young subjects with a large total power. Regression of the spectrum by a broken line with a single break point revealed that the spectral exponent (β) was greater in the region below than above the break point (1.63 ± 0.23 vs. 0.96 ± 0.21, P < 0.001). The break point frequency increased with age ( r = 0.51, P < 0.001) and β correlated with age negatively below the break point ( r = 0.39) and positively above the break point ( r = 0.70). The contribution to interindividual difference in total power was greater from the differences in the power spectral density at frequencies closer to both ends of the frequency axis and minimal from that at −3.25 log(Hz), suggesting hingelike movement of the spectral shape at this frequency with the difference in total power. These characteristics of the 24-h HRV spectrum were simulated by an artificial signal generated by adding two noises with different β values. Given that the power law assumption is fundamental to the analysis of dynamics through the log-log scaled spectrum, our observations are substantial for physiological and clinical studies of the heartbeat dynamic during daily life and suggest that the nonharmonic component of HRV in normal subjects during daily life may include at least two 1/ f β fluctuations that differ in dynamics and age dependency.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (11) ◽  
pp. 1075-1082
Author(s):  
Isao Saito ◽  
Koutatsu Maruyama ◽  
Tadahiro Kato ◽  
Yasunori Takata ◽  
Kiyohide Tomooka ◽  
...  

Background: Autonomic activity is possibly influenced by physical activity (PA). However, it remains unclear whether this association is modified by insulin resistance. Methods: This population-based study between 2009 and 2012 included 2016 men and women aged 30–79 years. The PA was assessed using a validated questionnaire based on sleep, occupation, transportation, household characteristics, and leisure-time PA. Heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) in the sitting position were determined from 5-minute recordings of pulse waves detected by a fingertip sensor. The HRV was calculated as frequency (standard deviation of normal-to-normal [NN] intervals [SDNN]), root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD), and percentage differences between normal NN intervals >50 milliseconds [pNN50]) and time domains. Insulin resistance was evaluated using the homeostasis model assessment index (HOMA-IR). Results: HR, RMSSD, and pNN50 were related to the total and moderate/vigorous PA tertiles in models that included HOMA-IR. The partial regression coefficient of total PA per 1-SD increase was .05 (P = .019) for log-transformed RMSSD and 1.86 (P = .001) for pNN50. No interactive associations were observed between PA and HOMA-IR. Conclusions: Low total PA was associated with increased HR and low levels of RMSSD and pNN50, reflecting parasympathetic modulation that was not modified by insulin resistance.


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