Reduced Heartbeat-Evoked Responses in a Near-Death Case Report

Overview

Journal J Clin Neurol

Specialty Neurology

Date 2023 Jul 17

PMID 37455508

Authors

Diego Candia-Rivera

Calixto Machado

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background And Purpose: Whether brain-heart communication continues under ventricular fibrillation (VF) remains to be determined. There is weak evidence of physiological changes in cortical activity under VF. Moreover, brain-heart communication has not previously been studied in this condition. We aimed to measure parallel changes in heart-rate variability (HRV), cortical activity, and brain-heart interactions in a patient who experienced VF.

Methods: The EEG and EKG signals for the case report were acquired for approximately 20 h. We selected different 1-min-long segments based on the changes in the EKG waveform. We present the changes in heartbeat-evoked responses (HERs), HRV, and EEG power for each selected segment.

Results: The overall physiological activity appeared to deteriorate as VF proceeded. Brain-heart interactions measured using HERs disappeared, with a few aberrant amplitudes appearing occasionally. The parallel changes in EEG and HRV were not pronounced, suggesting the absence of bidirectional neural control.

Conclusions: Our measurements of brain-heart interactions suggested that the evolving VF impairs communication between the central and autonomic nervous systems. These results may support that reduced brain-heart interactions reflect loss of consciousness and deterioration in the overall health state.

Citing Articles

Aberrant brain-heart coupling is associated with the severity of post cardiac arrest brain injury.

Hermann B, Candia-Rivera D, Sharshar T, Gavaret M, Diehl J, Cariou A Ann Clin Transl Neurol. 2024; 11(4):866-882.

PMID: 38243640 PMC: 11021613. DOI: 10.1002/acn3.52000.

Conscious processing of global and local auditory irregularities causes differentiated heartbeat-evoked responses.

Candia-Rivera D, Raimondo F, Perez P, Naccache L, Tallon-Baudry C, Sitt J Elife. 2023; 12.

PMID: 37888955 PMC: 10651171. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.75352.

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