Heart Rate Variability in Psychosomatic Medicine

  • Kanbara Kenji
    Psychosomatic Meidicne, Faculty of Medicine, Kagawa University

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  • 心身医学における心拍変動
  • シンシン イガク ニ オケル シンパク ヘンドウ

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<p>Among the fluctuations of various biological systems, the evaluation method for the heart beat fluctuation has been well established, and it is called the heart rate variability (HRV). HRV has been used in fields such as medicine, psychology, nursing, and stress research as an index that reflects physiological functions, especially autonomic functions such as the cardiac vagal function.</p><p>In the fields of psychosomatic medicine and psychology, HRV is widely used as an index of stress evaluation and physiological function. Compared to biochemical stress markers such as cortisol, HRV can be measured over time, and has the advantage of being able to easily capture not only static states but also dynamic state changes. On the other hand, it also has the disadvantage of being unstable in time.</p><p>As a method for analysis of HRV, time domain analysis, frequency domain analysis and nonlinear analysis are typically used. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and it is necessary to use them properly according to the purpose and the state of measurement data. Conventionally, frequency domain analysis has been often used, but there are limits such as exclusion of components other than periodic fluctuation components, and overconfidence should be avoided.</p><p>HRV changes with stress, and tends to differ from that of healthy individuals in pathological conditions such as illness. Certain characteristics have also been found in functional somatic disorders related to psychosomatic medicine, and several meta-analyses have also been reported. Combining the findings of change in HRV due to stress in healthy subjects with the results of meta-analysis in the disease group, it is presumed that while the stress response is observed in the acute phase of stress-related diseases, the decrease in HRV seen under stress load is fixed and can be seen even when stress load is not applied in the chronic phase of the diseases.</p><p>Various portable/wearable devices have been developed for heart beat measurement, and large-scale data analysis technology is advancing day by day for HRV analysis. Future development of HRV measure and assessment is expected in the field of psychosomatic medicine.</p>

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