ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate status about the heart rate variability and executive function in patients with insomnia.Methods The study involves 165 cases of patients with insomnia and 92 cases normal.The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) screening for insomnia,Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) for the assessment of executive function and Self-generate Physiological Coherence System (SPCS) were used to collect the data of heart rate variability (HRV).Results The SDNN,RMSSD,TP,LF,HF of HRV of the insomnia group were significantly higher than these factors of control group (t=2.712,2.726,2.427,2.542,2.338,P＜0.05 or P＜ 0.01).In the WCST,number of completed categories,conceptualization percentage of the group of patients with insomnia were significantly lower than the control group (t=-2.368,-2.165,all P＜0.05),persistent errors,persistent error percentages,continuous number of responses of patients' group were significantly higher than the control group (t=2.712,2.991,2.690,all P＜0.01).TP,LF,HF,LF/HF of HRV and the number of error responses,persistent errors,persistent error percentages,continuous number of responses of WCST had significant negative correlations (r=-0.171--0.245,P＜0.05 or P＜0.01),while the conceptualization percentage were significantly positively correlated (r=0.198-0.227,P＜0.05 or P＜0.01).Conclusion The results show that insomnia not only cause individual autonomic disorders,but damage the executive function of prefrontal.HRV and executive function in patients with insomnia have close relationships.