Evaluation of the vagal activity by the Deep-Breathing test,Évaluation de l’activité vagale par le test de la respiration profonde (Deep-Breathing)
Neurophysiologie Clinique/Clinical Neurophysiology. 2007-01-01; 37(1): 41-46
DOI: 10.1016/j.neucli.2007.01.005
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1. Neurophysiol Clin. 2007 Jan-Mar;37(1):41-6. doi: 10.1016/j.neucli.2007.01.005.
Epub 2007 Feb 9.
[Evaluation of the vagal activity by the Deep-Breathing test].
[Article in French]
Aboudrar S(1), Benjelloun H, Benazzouz A, Bendahmanne S, Coghlan L, Kanouni N,
Abouqal R, Benomar M.
Author information:
(1)Laboratoire de physiologie, faculté de médecine et de pharmacie,
Rabat-Institut, Rabat BP 6203, Maroc.
OBJECTIVE: The Deep-Breathing (DB) test is of major importance in the evaluation
of the vagal response (VR). We applied this test to assess the VR in a group of
subjects with functional (neurological, cardiovascular or digestive) symptoms
unexplained by standard cardiac examination and to compare it with the VR
measured in a group of healthy controls.
PATIENTS AND METHODS: The following groups were considered: a C-Group of healthy
controls (n=50), and three groups each consisting of 50 symptomatic patients
(S1, S2, S3). Subjects in the S1-Group had a postural orthostatic tachycardia
syndrome (POTS), while members of the S2-Group had arterial hypertension, and
members of S3-Group had neither POTS nor arterial hypertension. The VR was
expressed as a percentage variation of RR intervals
100x[(RR(max)-RR(min))/RR(min)], and was correlated with age and sex in the
C-Group before any comparison.
RESULTS: In controls the VR was 31.0%+/-8.2. It was negatively correlated with
age (r=-0.42, p=0.003) and there was no significant difference between males
(31.2%+/-5.7) and females (30.9%+/-9.0) (p=0.12). Compared to the C-Group, the
VR was 51.6%+/-20.4 in the S1-Group (p