Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of breathing frequency and tidal volume on resting heart rate variability in children aged 9 years (n = 29) and 16 years (n = 19). Heart rate variability was measured in four conditions: (1) without the control of ventilation followed at random by (2) a fixed breathing frequency of 12 breaths/min, (3) a breathing frequency of 12 breaths/min but with a fixed tidal volume of 30% vital capacity and (4) a fixed breathing frequency of 6 breaths/min and a tidal volume of 30% vital capacity. A total of 128 RR intervals (the time between two spikes in the heart rate) were detected and absolute high- and low-frequency spectral components were calculated using autoregressive modelling. The younger children were unable to control ventilation to achieve conditions 3 and 4; therefore, a 2 ×2 (group ×condition) analysis of variance was used to analyse conditions 1 and 2. There were significant interactions between group and heart rate variability conditions for the low-frequency component and the ratio of low to high frequencies (P<0.001). The main effect for condition showed that at 12 breaths/min with no fixed tidal volume there was a significantly higher standard deviation of the RR interval, total power and high-frequency (P<0.01) and lowfrequency spectral components (P<0.05) than in the condition with no ventilatory control. Across the four breathing conditions for the older participants, the high-frequency spectral component was significantly higher in the condition at 6 breaths/min with a fixed tidal volume than in that with no ventilatory control (P<0.005); the ratio of high to low frequencies was significantly lower for the spontaneous condition than those performed at 12 breaths/min (P<0.001). The results provide evidence of the need for ventilatory control when assessing short-term resting heart rate variability in children. Verf.-Referat