Heart Rate Variability: A Risk Factor for Female Sexual Dysfunction.
Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback
; 40(3): 229-37, 2015 Sep.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26081002
ABSTRACT
Heart rate variability (HRV) is a measure of autonomic nervous system activity, which reflects an individual's ability to adapt to physiological and environmental changes. Low resting HRV has been linked to several mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, and alcohol dependence (Kemp et al. in Biological Psychiatry 67(11)1067-1074, 2010. doi10.1016/j.biopsych.2009.12.012; Kemp et al. in PloS One, 7(2)e30777, 2012; Quintana et al. in Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 132(1-2)395-398, 2013. doi10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2013.02.025). HRV has also been used as a method for indexing the relative balance of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity to parasympathetic nervous system activity. This balance--in particular, moderately dominant SNS activity--has been shown to play a significant role in women's genital sexual arousal in the laboratory; however, the role of SNS activity in clinically relevant sexual arousal function is unknown. The present study assessed the feasibility of using HRV as an index of women's self-reported sexual arousal function outside the laboratory. Sexual arousal function, overall sexual function, and resting HRV were assessed in 72 women, aged 18-39. Women with below average HRV were significantly more likely to report sexual arousal dysfunction (p < .001) and overall sexual dysfunction (p < .001) than both women with average HRV and women with above average HRV. In conclusion, low HRV may be a risk factor for female sexual arousal dysfunction and overall sexual dysfunction.
Texto completo:
1
Bases de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Disfunções Sexuais Fisiológicas
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Sistema Nervoso Simpático
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Frequência Cardíaca
Tipo de estudo:
Etiology_studies
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Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Adolescent
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Adult
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Female
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Humans
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback
Assunto da revista:
CIENCIAS DO COMPORTAMENTO
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PSICOFISIOLOGIA
Ano de publicação:
2015
Tipo de documento:
Article