Identifying heart-brain interactions during internally and externally operative attention using conditional entropy

摘要

Heart and brain interactions mediate human cognition. This investigation identifies heart-brain interactions during internally operative attention (A(I)) and externally operative attention (A(E)). A(I) attention involves short term memory, whereas At attention deals with automatic and transient response to objects in the external world. A modified Posner's spatial orienting task used to differentiate A(I) and A(E) attention. Heart and brain rhythms recorded in fourteen healthy participants. Functional coupling from heart-to-brain (C-heart -> brain) and brain-to-heart (C-brain -> heart) time series derived using an information domain approach based on conditional entropy. The experimental results showed that low-frequency power of heart rate variability (HRV-LF) and sympathovagal balance (LF/HF ratio) during At significantly increased compared with that for A(I). Furthermore, the information flow from heart-to-brain increased and decreased form brain-to-heart during A(E) as compared to A(I). Also, opposite trend in relationship noted between coupling index (C-i -> j) and HRV-LF during A(I) and A(E) attention. The conditional entropy technique enabled simultaneous analysis of heart-brain rhythms to identify heart-brain interactions during A(I) and A(E) attention. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.