Effects Of PC5 And PC6 Electro-acupuncture On Heart Rate Variability In Scared Volunteers Based On Autonomic Nervous System Response Patterns

Fear could be one of the most widely studied emotions,psychological illness will followed with the disorder of fear emotion control,such as posttraumatic stress disorder,depressive disorder and anxiety disorder,etc.Psychological response to fear induced multiple patterns,besides the classical antagonism pattern,there were another eight patterns including co-working patterns and non-accompany patterns.Heart Rate Variability(HRV)specifies the variations that occur within every cardiac cycle,indexes of HRV can reflect the activity balance of the cardiac sympathetic and parasympathetic system quantitatively.And it was widely used for the evaluations of cardiac Autonomic Nervous System(ANS)activities.Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM)considered that acupoints PC5(Jianshi)and PC6(Neiguan),which belong to the pericardium meridian of hand Jueyin,can treat heart,chest and cardiovascular relative diseases.A large amount of clinical observations proved that acupuncture can relieve and control fear emotion,while the mechanism is associated with ANS functions.Modern researches also show that acupoints in pericardium meridian of hand Jueyin are closely tied to heart basing on the morphologic foundation.In summary,we decided to study the effect of PC5 and PC6 electro-acupuncture on HRV during scary auditory stimulation by the use of a commercial Actiheart ECG-recorder.Evaluating the cardiac ANS variation during electro-acupuncture,to explore the mechanism of acupuncture relieving fear emotion,to provide the theoretical support for acupuncture treating relative diseases cause by fear emotion.Objective:Observing the effect of PC5 and PC6 electro-acupuncture on HRV in scared volunteers based on ANS response patterns,to explore the mechanism of PC5 and PC5 electro-acupuncture.Methods:A total of 200 healthy volunteers were recruited.Using a random-number table,the 40 volunteers were exposed to a scary and 40 to a neutral auditory stimulation.After determining that the scary auditory stimulation produced fear,the other 120 volunteers were similarly divided into an electro-acupuncture and a control group,who then received PC5 and PC6 electro-acupuncture or not any intervention.Compared the variations of HRV before,during and after the electro-acupuncture.Results:Volunteers were divided into antagonism pattern I,antagonism pattern ?,co-activated pattern and co-suppressed pattern according to the difference value of VLF and HF before and after the scary auditory stimulation.Antagonism pattern ?:Compared with control group,the electro-acupuncture group showed higher SD,RMSSD,and VLF components of HRV during,but not after,electro-acupuncture.While HF component of electro-acupuncture group showed higher value during and after the electro-acupuncture than that of the control group.The rest of the indexes showed no significant difference(p>0.05).Antagonism pattern II:None of the indexes of HRV showed significant difference before,during or after the electro-acupuncture(p>0.05).Co-activation group:The electro-acupuncture group had higher LF component of HRV compared with the control group during,but not after,electro-acupuncture.The rest of the indexes showed no significant difference(p>0.05).Co-suppressed group:The electro-acupuncture group had higher HF component of HRV compared with the control group,both during and after electro-acupuncture.The rest of the indexes showed no significant difference(p>0.05).Conclusions:During fear,PC5 and PC6 electro-acupuncture have different influences on HRV in different ANS-response patterns.