Abstract
Although delayed recovery of heart rate (HR) after exercise indicates poor prognosis,
the relative role of parasympathetic reactivation versus sympathetic withdrawal in
controlling exercise HR recovery remains controversial. Quantifying HR recovery is
difficult because the rate of recovery varies with exercise level. This study develops
a model of HR recovery applicable to multiple exercise levels simultaneously. Using
the Levenberg-Marquardt method for nonlinear models, HR curves for 11 healthy volunteers
recovering from 4 different levels of exercise were fit to equations incorporating
1 first-order time constant for parasympathetic reactivation and 1 for sympathetic
withdrawal. Results provided time constants for parasympathetic reactivation of 44
± 37 seconds and for sympathetic withdrawal of 65 ± 56 seconds. The model fit the
HR recovery curves very closely, explaining 99.7 ± 0.1% of the variance in the data.
In conclusion, this study presents a unique method for quantitatively testing theories
on the relative roles of sympathetic withdrawal and parasympathetic reactivation during
recovery from exercise. It provides indexes of dynamic sympathetic and parasympathetic
functions, with the parasympathetic system having a faster response time. It supports
theories of coordinated interaction of parasympathetic reactivation and sympathetic
withdrawal during exercise recovery and does not support using simple measures of
exercise HR recovery as indexes of vagal function alone.
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
March 15,
2004
Received in revised form:
March 15,
2004
Received:
December 16,
2003
Footnotes
☆This study was supported by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC and Endocardial Solutions, Inc., St. Paul, Minnesota.
Identification
Copyright
© 2004 Excerpta Medica Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
