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Cardiovascular rhythms in the 0.15-Hz band: common origin of identical phenomena in man and dog in the reticular formation of the brain stem?

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Abstract

Selected examples from experiments in humans and dogs with time series of reticular neurons, respiration, arterial blood pressure and cutaneous forehead blood content fluctuations were analysed using multiscaled time-frequency distribution, post-event-scan and pointwise transinformation. We found in both experiments a “0.15-Hz rhythm” exhibiting periods of spindle waves (increasing and decreasing amplitudes), phase synchronized with respiration at 1:2 and 1:1 integer number ratios. At times of wave-epochs and n:m phase synchronization, the 0.15-Hz rhythm appeared in heart rate and arterial blood pressure. As phase synchronization of the 0.15-Hz rhythm with respiration was established at a 1:1 integer number ratio, all cardiovascular-respiratory oscillations were synchronized at 0.15 Hz. Analysis of a canine experiment supplied evidence that the emergence of the 0.15-Hz rhythm and n:m phase synchronization appears to result from a decline in the level of the general activity of the organism associated with a decline in the level of activity of reticular neurons in the lower brainstem network. These findings corroborate the notion of the 0.15-Hz rhythm as a marker of the “trophotropic mode of operation” first introduced by W.R. Hess.

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Notes

  1. He wrote plainly: “Also in the case of heart rate rhythmicity such a rigid scheme cannot cope with the complex and variable interactions between the different rhythms.”

  2. In the literature, such neuronal subpopulations are also designated by other authors as “transient neuronal assemblies” (see e.g. Lindsey et al. 1994; Singer 1998). In this publication, we prefer the term “dynamically organized neuronal subpopulations” as used in our publications since 1980.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychophysiologisches Labor, Klinik für Psychosomatik und Psychotherapeutische Medizin, Medizinische Fakultät der Rheinisch-Westfälisch-Technischen Hochschule Aachen, Pauwelsstrasse 30, 52057, Aachen, Germany

    Volker Perlitz, Guido Flatten & Ernst Richard Petzold

  2. Institut für Physiologie, Charité—Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Arnimallee 22, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Manfred Lambertz & Peter Langhorst

  3. Department of Exercise and Health, Marmara University, Anadoluhisar-Campus, Beykoz, Istanbul, Turkey

    Birol Cotuk

  4. Unité Génie Biophysique et Médicale, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France

    Reinhard Grebe

  5. Technische Fachhochschule Wildau, Bahnhofstrasse, 15745, Wildau, Germany

    Ralf Vandenhouten

  6. Institut für Physiologie, Medizinische Fakultät der Rheinisch-Westfälisch-Technischen Hochschule Aachen, Pauwelsstrasse 30, 52057, Aachen, Germany

    Holger Schmid-Schönbein

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  1. Volker Perlitz
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Correspondence to Volker Perlitz.

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Perlitz, V., Lambertz, M., Cotuk, B. et al. Cardiovascular rhythms in the 0.15-Hz band: common origin of identical phenomena in man and dog in the reticular formation of the brain stem?. Pflugers Arch - Eur J Physiol 448, 579–591 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00424-004-1291-4

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