Effects on Cardiac and Peripheral Autonomic Nervous System by Posture Respiration Feedback Control Architecture

We tested the efficacy of our developed posture-respiration feedback architecture on cardiac and peripheral autonomic nervous system activity. In this system, the posture of a user lying on a bed was regulated adaptively with the rhythm of the user’s respiration in a real-time manner. We hypothesized that such an adaptive posture intervention makes user’s breathing deeper and longer. To investigate the efficacy of this architecture the effects of a respiration-synchronized posture intervention on cardiac and peripheral autonomic system was compared with the effects of asynchronous and constant respiration. Ten healthy males were enrolled in the within-subject experiment with a counter-balanced order. The results indicate that, as hypothesized, the deep breathing was successfully induced when the posture control was precisely synchronized with the user’s respiration. Also, holistically positive efficacy in terms of the reduction in tension and peripheral sympathetic activity was demonstrated.