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Wiley, Psychophysiology, 2(52), p. 225-237, 2014

DOI: 10.1111/psyp.12300

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Ambulatory measurement of the ECG T-wave amplitude: Ambulatory measurement of ECG T-wave amplitude

Journal article published in 2014 by René van Lien, Melanie Neijts, Gonneke Willemsen, Eco J. C. de Geus ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Ambulatory recording of the preejection period (PEP) can be used to measure changes in cardiac sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity under naturalistic conditions. Here, we test the ECG T-wave amplitude (TWA) as an alternative measure, using 24-h ambulatory monitoring of PEP and TWA in a sample of 564 healthy adults. The TWA showed a decrease in response to mental stress and a monotonic decrease from nighttime sleep to daytime sitting and more physically active behaviors. Within-participant changes in TWA were correlated with changes in the PEP across the standardized stressors (r = .42) and the unstandardized naturalistic conditions (mean r = .35). Partialling out changes in heart rate and vagal effects attenuated these correlations, but they remained significant. Ambulatory TWA cannot replace PEP, but simultaneous recording of TWA and PEP provides a more comprehensive picture of changes in cardiac SNS activity in real-life settings.