Abstract
Purpose
Women display an attenuated mechanoreflex during leg movement; however, sex differences in the response to arm movement are unknown.
Methods
Men (n = 12) and women (n = 10) performed passive arm or leg movement where either the right elbow or right knee was passively flexed/extended for 3 min at 30 times/min. Mean arterial pressure (MAP), cardiac output index (Qi), and heart rate (HR) were continuously measured and 1-min averages along with peak values were obtained. Heart rate variability was measured at baseline and throughout 3 min of passive movement.
Results
Men had a greater average HR (P = 0.006) and Qi (P = 0.05) responses to passive limb movement compared to women. Men also had a greater (P = 0.02) and faster (P = 0.04) peak Qi response compared to women. During arm movement, men exhibited a greater change of average MAP compared to both women (P = 0.002) and leg movement (P = 0.05). Movement of either limb in both sexes decreased low-frequency power (LF; P = 0.04), decreased low-frequency to high-frequency ratio (LF/HF; P = 0.03), and increased high-frequency power (HF; P = 0.01) of heart rate variability. Women had lower pulse wave velocity (P = 0.02), higher root mean square of the successive differences (RMSSD; P = 0.04), lower LF power (P = 0.04), higher HF power (P = 0.03), and higher cardiovagal baroreceptor sensitivity (P = 0.003) compared to men at all time points.
Conclusions
We have found sex- and limb-dependent responses where men exhibit higher blood pressure in response to passive arm movement compared to women and compared to leg movement.
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Abbreviations
- ANOVA:
-
Analysis of variance
- cBRS:
-
Cardiovagal baroreceptor sensitivity
- CPM:
-
Continuous passive motion
- ECG:
-
Electrocardiogram
- EMG:
-
Electromyography
- CO2 :
-
Carbon dioxide
- HF:
-
High-frequency spectrum
- HR:
-
Heart rate
- HRV:
-
Heart rate variability
- LF:
-
Low-frequency spectrum
- LF/HF:
-
Ratio of low frequency to high frequency
- MAP:
-
Mean arterial pressure
- nu:
-
Normalized units
- O2 :
-
Oxygen
- PWV:
-
Pulse wave velocity
- Q:
-
Cardiac output
- Qi:
-
Cardiac output index
- RMSDD:
-
Root mean square of successive differences
- SDNN:
-
Standard deviation of NN intervals
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Acknowledgements
Funding provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Ontario Research Fund (ORF). The authors would like to thank Matthew Sem for his help with data analysis.
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BF and HE contributed to the conception and design of the work. BF, HJ, and HE contributed to the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of the data and drafting of the work/revising it critically for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Communicated by I. Mark Olfert.
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Fouladi, B., Joshi, H. & Edgell, H. Cardiovascular and autonomic responses to passive arm or leg movement in men and women. Eur J Appl Physiol 119, 551–559 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-018-4030-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-018-4030-9