Is cardiac autonomic modulation determined by gender or aerobic physical capacity in healthy subjects?
Cardiac autonomic modulation is determined by gender, with women showing greater vagal and men greater sympathetic influence, independent of aerobic physical capacity.
The results suggest that aerobic physical capacity does not interfere with HRV modulation; however, the cardiac modulatory balance differs between genders and is characterized by a greater influence of the autonomic vagal component in women and by the sympathetic component in men.
Dutra et al. (Thu,) studied this question.