Abstract
Hemoconcentration with mental stress exposure may be involved in the triggering of acute cardiovascular events. In the present study, hematocrit was measured repeatedly at baseline, during a 4 min mental stress task and during 20 min of recovery. Blood was sampled every 1-2 min throughout. Blood pressure, heart rate and R-wave to pulse interval, a measure of cardiac contractility, were measured with the same periodicity. The stress task elicited a 1.3% increase in hematocrit, which was sustained with full return to baseline level occurring only after 16 min of recovery. Between-subject correlations between hematocrit and hemodynamic activity were low. Aggregate within-subject coefficients were more impressive; the temporal profile of hematocrit correlated significantly with all hemodynamic variables. Similar within-subject analyses indicated that whereas cardiac contractility was correlated with hematocrit both during stress-related increase and subsequent recovery, blood pressure was related to hematocrit only during the increase. This suggests that stress-induced hemoconcentration may driven by different mechanisms than those which underlie its recovery. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 318-324 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Biological Psychology |
Volume | 72 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2006 |
Keywords
- mental stress
- R-wave to pulse interval
- heart rate
- blood pressure
- hematocrit
- recovery
- hemoconcentration