J Korean Neuropsychiatr Assoc.  2005 Mar;44(2):176-184.

Heart Rate Variability in Psychiatry

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Psychiatry, Seoul Paik Hospital, Inje University, Seoul, Korea.
  • 2Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea. alberto@catholic.ac.kr

Abstract

The analysis of heart rate variability is a useful tool to investigate the physiologic phenomena related with autonomic functions. At first, it was developed to evaluate the relation between cardiovascular disease and autonomic balance. Nowadays, the application of it's use has been considered in psychiatric practice. And its convenient usage and non-invasiveness gathered more interest of clinicians and investigators. However, no systematic review of the studies on the heart rate variability in psychiatric field is tound. Thus we reviewed the literatures on the usage and it's limitations of the heart rate variability in terms of the spplication in psychiaric practice and research. Interviews with experts on autonomic functions were also included to supplement the review. Studies found that patients with schizophrenia showed reduced heart rate variability while taking clozapine, and severely depressed patients showed more reduced heart rate variability than normal control. Patients with various anxiety disorders including panic disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder showed eleated sympathetic autonomic tone compared with normal control subjects. However these findings remained controversial because of many confounding factors including drug effects and individual and situational factors affecting heart rate variability. With further studies after successful control of confounding variables, the analysis of heart rate variability would be a useful physiologic parameter of asessing psychiatric patients in clinical practice and research.

Keyword

Heart rate variability; Autonomic functions; Psychiatry

MeSH Terms

Anxiety Disorders
Cardiovascular Diseases
Clozapine
Confounding Factors (Epidemiology)
Heart Rate*
Heart*
Humans
Panic Disorder
Research Personnel
Schizophrenia
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
Clozapine
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