An exploratory study of the association between heart rate variability reactivity and prospective memory in a sample of coronary artery disease patients and healthy controls.
Journal
Physiology & behavior
Journal Volume
294
Start Page
114861
ISSN
1873-507X
Date Issued
2025-05-15
Author(s)
Hsu, Yen-Hsuan
Jiang, Ding-Yu
Chen, Hsin-Chin
Hsu, Bo-Cheng
Hsieh, Li-Ren
Yao, Hsin-Lei
Chang, Yung-Ching
Weng, Chia-Ying
Abstract
Prospective memory (PM), the ability of remembering and executing intended actions, is essential to goal-directed behavior. Emerging evidence suggests that PM may covary with autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity, which is often impaired in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Therefore, we aimed to explore whether cardiac vagal control, both at rest and during cognitive challenge, influences PM performance in the context of CAD. A total of 56 patients with CAD and 38 healthy controls completed a computerized PM test and underwent heart rate variability (HRV) measurements. Resting cardiac vagal control was measured by root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) and low-to-high frequency (LF/HF) ratio. Percentage change in these HRV variables from rest to PM task represented vagal reactivity. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that worse PM performance was predicted by CAD diagnosis after controlling for age and education, and adding RMSSD reactivity and LH/HF ratio reactivity during the PM task significantly improved the explanatory power beyond CAD diagnosis. A parallel mediation model confirmed that HRV reactivity mediated the relationship between CAD and PM performance. The findings highlight that cardiac vagal reactivity plays a significant role in PM performance and may act as an underlying mechanism of CAD-related cognitive deficits. This underscores the importance of ANS function in regulating cognitive processes, and further supports the brain-heart connection framework.
Subjects
Coronary heart disease
Heart rate variability
Prospective memory
SDGs
Type
journal article