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April 7, 2021Työväentutkimus VuosikirjaOpen Access

Diving Responses in Experienced Rebreather Divers: Short-Term Heart Rate Variability in Cold Water Diving

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Why the study?

Challenging conditions such as arctic water, immersion, submersion, hyperoxia, and stress all affect the autonomic nervous system during technical diving.

Does cold water diving affect short-term heart rate variability in experienced rebreather divers?

Comparison

Short-term HRV during a 45-meter cold-water dive vs resting values before and after dives

Design

Physiological interventional study

Authors

RLRichard V LundellLTLaura TuominenTOTommi Ojanen

Discussion

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Overview

May elevate arrhythmia risk during cold-water immersion; hypothesis-generating for HRV monitoring in divers.

Structured PICO

Does cold water diving affect short-term heart rate variability in experienced rebreather divers?

P
Population
26 experienced, healthy subjects (23 male, 3 female) from the Finnish recreational technical diving community and Finnish Defense Forces.
I
Intervention
A 45-meter decompression dive in 2-4°C water using closed circuit rebreather (CCR) units.
C
Comparator
Resting values evaluated from separate measurements before and after the dives.
O
Outcome
Short-term (5 min) heart rate variability (HRV) evaluated with parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic (SNS) indexes.surrogate

Cold water diving induces a strong initial parasympathetic activation via the trigeminocardiac reflex followed by cold-induced parasympathetic activity, with concurrent sympathetic activation that may elevate arrhythmia risk.

Limitations

  • Not done in controlled laboratory-like conditions
  • Divers had to swim forth for a while during descent, possibly influencing ANS functions
  • HRV rest measurements were performed at a thermoneutral temperature, while dive measurements were performed with diving undergarments on

Cite This Study

Lundell et al. (2021) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a89cb56af65c378f7fd49eahttps://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.649319
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Also Consider

Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context:

  1. 1Diving in the Arctic: Cold Water Immersion’s Effects on Heart Rate Variability in Navy Divers2020 · 29 citations
  2. 2A systematic review of HRV during diving in very cold water2023 · 16 citations
  3. 3Assessment of a dive incident using heart rate variability2020 · 4 citations
  4. 4Prolonged Extreme Cold Water Diving and the Acute Stress Response During Military Dive Training2022 · 22 citations
  5. 5Heart Rate Variability During and After a Closed-Circuit Rebreather Dive: A Case Study in Autonomic Regulation2025 · 1 citations