Heart Rate Variability Analysis Guided by Respiration in Major Depression Disorder

Spyridon Kontaxis1, Michele Orini2, Eduardo Gil3, Mar Posadas-de Miguel4, Maria Luisa Bernal4, Jordi Aguiló5, Concepción de la Camara4, Pablo Laguna6, Raquel Bailón7
1Biomedical Research Networking Centre on Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine, 2University College London, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 3BSICoS Group, I3A, IIS Aragon, University of Zaragoza, Spain, 4Instituto de Investigacion Sanitaria de Aragon (IIS Aragon), Zaragoza, Spain, 5Microelectronics and Electronic Systems Dept., Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain, 6Zaragoza University, 7I3A, IIS, Universidad de Zaragoza, CIBER-BBN


Abstract

In this study a Heart Rate Variability (HRV) analysis guided by respiration to evaluate different patterns of Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) in response to a cognitive stressor between Mayor Depression Disorder (MDD) and control (CT) subjects is presented. Cardiorespiratory Time Frequency Coherence (TFC) reveals the local coupling of HRV and respiration signal which is essential and usually not included in estimation of ANS measures derived by HRV. Parasympathetic activity of ANS is measured as the power at the frequencies where TFC between HRV and respiration is significant, whereas sympathetic dominance is measured as the normalized power in the low frequency band [0.04, 0.15] Hz of HRV excluding the power of those frequencies related to respiration. Results showed significantly lower (p < 0.05) sympathetic dominance in MDD with respect to CT subjects during stress, suggesting that ANS reactivity as response to stress stimuli is lower in MDD patients. The study of ANS reactivity to a stressor may serve as a biomarker useful for the early diagnosis and monitoring of MDD patients.