Analysis of cardiovascular and autonomic nerve response to visual stress for preclinical medicine

Stress is an important factor when we consider responses in the cardiovascular and the autonomic nervous systems. After ethical committee allowance, responses in the cardiovascular system and autonomic nerve were evaluated with the individual characteristics. We investigated relationship between responses to the stress and individual characteristics. Healthy adult participants were assessed with type A scale, Beck depression scale, Hostility scale and Japanese Coronary-prone Behavior Scale (JCBS). Participants were showed hateful images and performed a mathematical task (Sudoku). Heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), LF/HF and pulse wave transmission time (PTT) were measured. The maximum value of the cross-correlation coefficients between BP and HR (ρ_max BH), BP and PTT (ρ_max BT) were analyzed. In both tasks, higher type A scored groups had larger LF/HF, suggesting that the individual characteristics were correlated with the autonomic nervous system. Significant correlation between the Beck depression score and the decrease in PTT and the increase in BP during hateful images were observed. High type A scored or high depression level had the relationship with the stress.