RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The influence of heart rate variability biofeedback on cardiac regulation and functional brain connectivity
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.08.10.243998
DO 10.1101/2020.08.10.243998
A1 Andy Schumann
A1 Feliberto de la Cruz
A1 Stefanie Köhler
A1 Lisa Brotte
A1 Karl-Jürgen Bär
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/08/10/2020.08.10.243998.abstract
AB Background Heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback has a beneficial impact on perceived stress and emotion regulation. However, its impact on brain function is still unclear. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of an 8-week HRV-biofeedback intervention on functional brain connectivity in healthy subjects.Methods HRV biofeedback was carried out in five sessions per week, including four at home and one in our lab. A control group played jump‘n’run games instead of the training. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was conducted before and after the intervention in both groups. To compute resting state functional connectivity (RSFC), we defined regions of interest in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and a total of 260 independent anatomical regions for network-based analysis. Changes of RSFC of the VMPFC to other brain regions were compared between groups. Temporal changes of HRV during the resting state recording were correlated to dynamic functional connectivity of the VMPFC.Results First, we corroborated the role of the VMPFC in cardiac autonomic regulation. We found that temporal changes of HRV were correlated to dynamic changes of prefrontal connectivity, especially to the middle cingulate cortex, left anterior insula, right amygdala, supplementary motor area, dorsal and ventral lateral prefrontal regions. The biofeedback group showed a drop in heart rate by 5.5 beats/min and an increased RMSSD as a measure of HRV by 10.1ms (33%) after the intervention. Functional connectivity of the VMPFC increased mainly to the right anterior insula, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex after biofeedback intervention when compared to changes in the control group. Network-based statistic showed that biofeedback had an influence on a broad functional network of brain regions.Conclusion Our results show that increased vagal modulation induced by HRV-biofeedback is accompanied by changes in functional brain connectivity during resting state.