Asymmetrical properties of the spontaneous baroreceptor reflex

Abstract

Using 5-minute resting beat-to-beat recordings of systolic blood pressure and RR intervals from ECG from 169 healthy young adults, we present a novel method of estimating various features of the spontaneous baroreflex function, i.e., the ppBR method. These features include short- and long-term, and total baroreflex sensitivity and baroreflex effectiveness. This method also demonstrates that spontaneous baroreflex is asymmetrical only for recordings with the preserved, original order of systolic blood pressure and RR intervals. If this order is randomly shuffled to remove the physiological associations, all asymmetrical features of baroreflex sensitivity and baroreflex effectiveness are abolished.