Title | Heart Rate Variability and Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Epilepsy Patients. | ||
Author | Constantinescu, Victor; Matei, Daniela; Constantinescu, Irina; Cuciureanu, Dan Iulian | ||
Journal | Transl Neurosci | Publication Year/Month | 2019 |
PMID | 31497318 | PMCID | PMC6708288 |
Affiliation + expend | 1.Neurology Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Medicine and Pharmacy Iasi, Iasi Romania. |
BACKGROUND: Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) exerts a cortical modulating effect through its diffuse projections, especially involving cerebral structures related to autonomic regulation. The influence of VNS on cardiovascular autonomic function in drug-resistant epilepsy patients is still debated. We aimed to evaluate the impact of VNS on cardiovascular autonomic function in drug-resistant epilepsy patients, after three months of neurostimulation, using the heart rate variability (HRV) analysis. METHODOLOGY: Multiple Trigonometric Regressive Spectral analysis enables a precise assessment of the autonomic control on the heart rate. We evaluated time and frequency-domain HRV parameters in resting condition and during sympathetic and parasympathetic activation tests in five epilepsy patients who underwent VNS procedure. RESULTS: We found appropriate cardiac autonomic responses to sympathetic and parasympathetic activation tests, described by RMSSD, pNN50, HF and LF/HF dynamics after three months of VNS. ON period of the neurostimulation may generate a transient vagal activation reflected on heart rate and RMSSD values, as observed in one of our cases. CONCLUSION: VNS therapy in epilepsy patients seems not to disrupt the cardiac autonomic function. HRV represents a useful tool in evaluating autonomic activity. More extensive studies are needed to further explore cardiac autonomic response after neurostimulation.