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Crossover assessment of cardiolocomotor synchronization during running

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aimed at testing the hypothesis that positive cardiolocomotor coordination (CLC) measure occurs by chance during a running task where the heart rate (HR) is approximated to the step frequency (StepF).

Methods

The electrocardiogram and electromyogram from the right gastrocnemius lateralis muscle were continuously recorded from ten healthy young men running at a paced rhythm of 152 step/min, to monitor HR and StepF. CLC was evaluated by phase synchrograms and the index of conditional probability (iCP). Results were validated with surrogate data and a crossover approach, where the HR of one subject was related to the StepF of another one, and comparisons were made combining subjects two by two.

Results

Six subjects showed synchrogram structures and high iCP values (≥0.8), suggesting the occurrence of physiological entrainment, when the HR reached the SF range. In crossover analysis, phase synchrograms and iCP presented similar behavior of original data when the HR from one subject was close enough to the SF from another one. Significant iCP values in 46 of 90 comparisons (51%) were observed, including all cases crossing signals among the six positive cases.

Conclusion

Synchrogram and iCP tools currently employed for measuring CLC are not appropriate because they indicate the occurrence of this phenomenon even among subjects who ran on different days and times of each other.

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Abbreviations

\(\phi_{r,l}\) :

Relative phase

CLC:

Cardiolocomotor coordination

ECG:

Electrocardiogram

EMG:

Electromyogram

EMGenv:

EMG envelope

HR:

Heart rate

iCP:

Index of conditional probability

RC:

Running cycle

SF:

Stride frequency

StepF:

Step frequency corresponds to twice SF

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Acknowledgements

This study was partially supported by the Brazilian Research Council (student and research fellowship) and CAPES Foundation/Brazilian Ministry of Education (research Grant and student fellowship).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Engenharia Biomédica, COPPE/UFRJ, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, P.O. Box 68510, Rio de Janeiro, 21941-972, RJ, Brazil

    Lucenildo Silva Cerqueira, Aluizio D’Affonsêca Netto, Roger Gomes Tavares Mello & Jurandir Nadal

  2. Laboratório de Fisiologia do Exercício e Biomecânica (LaFEB), Departamento de Educação Física e Esportes, Escola Naval, Marinha do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Roger Gomes Tavares Mello

Authors
  1. Lucenildo Silva Cerqueira
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  2. Aluizio D’Affonsêca Netto
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  3. Roger Gomes Tavares Mello
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  4. Jurandir Nadal
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Correspondence to Jurandir Nadal.

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Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of interest

There are no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Communicated by Massimo Pagani.

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Cerqueira, L.S., D’Affonsêca Netto, A., Mello, R.G.T. et al. Crossover assessment of cardiolocomotor synchronization during running. Eur J Appl Physiol 117, 315–322 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-016-3513-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-016-3513-9

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