Abstract
Purpose
It has been reported that acute brief episodes of mental stress (MS) result in a prolonged increase in carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), an index of aortic stiffness. However, whether acute MS also impacts arterial stiffness in other segments is unclear. The present study aimed to examine the impact of acute MS on segmental arterial stiffness.
Methods
In the main experiment, 17 young male subjects (mean age, 20.1 ± 0.7 years) performed a 5-min MS and control (CON) task in a random order. Pulse wave velocity (PWV) from the heart to the brachium (hbPWV) and the ankle (haPWV), PWV between the brachial artery and the ankle (baPWV), and the cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) were simultaneously measured at baseline and 5, 15, and 30 min after the task.
Results
Compared to baseline values, hbPWV, baPWV, haPWV, and CAVI significantly increased until 30 min after the MS task, whereas these variables did not significantly change following the CON task. At 5 and 30 min after the MS task, percentage changes from baseline were significantly higher in hbPWV (+ 5.2 ± 4.4 and 6.6 ± 4.9%) than in baPWV (+ 2.2 ± 2.1 and 2.2 ± 2.0%) or haPWV (+ 3.6 ± 2.6 and 4.3 ± 2.9%) and were also significantly lower in baPWV than in haPWV.
Conclusion
These findings suggest that acute MS elicits an increase in arterial stiffness in various segments and this arterial stiffening is not uniform among the segments.
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Abbreviations
- ANOVA:
-
Analysis of variance
- baPWV:
-
Brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity
- BP:
-
Blood pressure
- CAVI:
-
Cardio-ankle vascular index
- cfPWV:
-
Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity
- CON:
-
Control
- CVD:
-
Cardiovascular disease
- ECG:
-
Electrocardiogram
- haPWV:
-
Heart-ankle pulse wave velocity
- hbPWV:
-
Heart-brachial pulse wave velocity
- MS:
-
Mental stress
- PWV:
-
Pulse wave velocity
- SNS:
-
Sympathetic nervous system
- VAS:
-
Visual analogue scale
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The authors are grateful to all the subjects for their participation in this study.
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DK and MN conceived and designed the study. DK performed the experiments. DK and MN analysed the data. All authors interpreted the results of the experiments. DK prepared figures and tables. DK drafted the manuscript. All authors edited and revised the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of manuscript.
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Communicated by Fabio Fischetti.
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Kume, D., Nishiwaki, M., Hotta, N. et al. Impact of acute mental stress on segmental arterial stiffness. Eur J Appl Physiol 120, 2247–2257 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-020-04448-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-020-04448-9