ABSTRACT
The relationship between the level of volitional lifestyle and nocturnal heart rate (HR) in the elderly was investigated. Twenty high- and low-volitional elderly individuals (n = 10 each; mean age 73.2 years) participated in the study. Heart rate during nocturnal sleep was recorded at their homes using an ambulatory polysomnographic system. High-volitional individuals showed a lower HR throughout the night and less variability during rapid eye movement sleep. These findings suggest that a volitional lifestyle of the elderly has a beneficial effect on autonomic activity during sleep.
Subject(s)
Aging/physiology , Heart Rate/physiology , Life Style , Sleep/physiology , Aged , Electrocardiography, Ambulatory , Female , Humans , Male , Motor Activity , Polysomnography , Volition , WakefulnessABSTRACT
Simultaneous recording of functional MRI (fMRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG) has been applied to several clinical fields, making it possible to monitor the arousal level of the subject during a cognitive task. The study confirmed that activated cerebral areas were different between high and low arousal levels during the smooth-pursuit eye movement task. When arousal level was high, activations in the parietal eye field, frontal eye field (FEF), supplementary eye field (SMA), visual fields (V1) and occipito-temporal junction (V5) were found. In contrast, when arousal level was low, activations were found only in V1 and FEF. The results indicate that the monitoring of the arousal level of subjects using fMRI and EEG recordings simultaneously is crucial for detecting cortical activations during a cognitive task.
