Youth with anxiety disorders exhibited higher and less fluctuating heart rate during baseline compared to healthy controls, indicating an autonomic profile potentially linked to future cardiac risk.
Case-Control (n=34)
Does exposure to a novel situation and 5% CO(2) reveal differences in heart rate and heart rate variability in youth with anxiety disorders compared to healthy controls?
Youth with anxiety disorders exhibit elevated and less fluctuating heart rates with diminished vagal modulation, identifying an autonomic profile that may place them at risk for future cardiovascular disease.
The aim was to clarify the developmental nature of associations between psychiatric illness and risk for cardiovascular disease by investigating differences in cardiac functioning between youth with anxiety disorders and healthy controls. Twenty-two children meeting DSM-IV criteria for either separation anxiety disorder, overanxious disorder, panic disorder/panic attacks, or social phobia and 12 healthy controls underwent continuous electrocardiogram and respiration rate monitoring during a 15 min baseline period and 15 min of exposure to 5% CO(2). Heart rate (HR) and high frequency heart rate variability (HRV), a non-invasive measure of cardiac parasympathetic control, were calculated. Youth with anxiety disorders had higher and less fluctuating HR during baseline. Data also suggested that probands showed diminished overall changes in HRV during baseline and CO(2) inhalation relative to controls. However, as respiration rate affects HRV, these findings were confounded by changes in respiration elicited by CO(2) inhalation. The data suggest that youth with anxiety disorders experience an elevated and less fluctuating HR in the face of a novel situation, possibly due to a failure to appropriately modulate HRV. In adults, sustained elevations in HR in conjunction with deficient vagal modulation predicts risk for future cardiovascular disease. As such, the current data suggest that the presence of an anxiety disorder may identify youth who exhibit autonomic profiles that place them at risk for cardiac disease.
Monk et al. (Fri,) conducted a case-control in Paediatric anxiety disorders (n=34). Anxiety disorders vs. Healthy controls was evaluated on Heart rate (HR) and high frequency heart rate variability (HRV). Youth with anxiety disorders exhibited higher and less fluctuating heart rate during baseline compared to healthy controls, indicating an autonomic profile potentially linked to future cardiac risk.