Key result
Ventricular fibrillation caused a disappearance of brain-heart interactions measured by heartbeat-evoked responses, indicating deteriorated communication between the central and autonomic nervous systems.
Why the study?
Whether brain-heart communication continues under ventricular fibrillation remains to be acknowledged, with limited evidence of physiological changes in cortical activity.
Case Report (n=1)
No
Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
This case report demonstrates that evolving ventricular fibrillation leads to a loss of brain-heart communication, as evidenced by the disappearance of heartbeat-evoked responses on EEG.
Background & Purpose: Whether brain-heart communication continues under ventricular fibrillation (VF) remains to be acknowledged. There is limited evidence of the physiological changes in cortical activity under VF. Moreover, brain-heart communication has not been studied before in this condition. We aim to illustrate parallel changes in heart-rate variability, cortical activity, and brain-heart interactions in a case report undergoing VF. Methods: The case report's EEG and EKG was acquired for approximately 20h. We selected different one-minute-long segments, based on the changes in the EKG waveform. We present the changes in heartbeat-evoked responses (HERs), heart rate variability (HRV), and EEG power for each selected segment.Results: The overall physiological activity appears deteriorated in the ongoing VF. Brain-heart interactions measured with HERs disappear, with a few aberrant amplitudes appearing occasionally. The parallel changes in EEG-HRV are not pronounced, suggesting an absence of bidirectional neural control.Conclusions: The measurements of brain-heart interactions suggest that the evolving VF causes deteriorated communication between the central and autonomic nervous systems. These results may support that reduced brain-heart interactions reflect the loss of consciousness and overall health state.
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Candia‐Rivera et al. (2023) conducted a case report in Ventricular fibrillation (n=1). EEG and EKG monitoring vs. Normal sinus rhythm (within-subject) was evaluated on Changes in heartbeat-evoked responses (HERs), heart rate variability (HRV), and EEG power. Ventricular fibrillation caused a disappearance of brain-heart interactions measured by heartbeat-evoked responses, indicating deteriorated communication between the central and autonomic nervous systems.
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