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Spectral analyses of systolic blood pressure and heart rate variability and their association with cognitive performance in elderly hypertensive subjects

Journal of Human Hypertension volume 29, pages 488–494 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Systolic hypertension is associated with cognitive decline in the elderly. Altered blood pressure (BP) variability is a possible mechanism of reduced cognitive performance in elderly hypertensives. We hypothesized that altered beat-to-beat systolic BP variability is associated with reduced global cognitive performance in elderly hypertensive subjects. In exploratory analyses, we also studied the correlation between diverse discrete cognitive domains and indices of systolic BP and heart rate variability. Disproving our initial hypothesis, we have shown that hypertension and low education, but not indices of systolic BP and heart rate variability, were independent predictors of lower global cognitive performance. However, exploratory analyses showed that the systolic BP variability in semi-upright position was an independent predictor of matrix reasoning (B=0.08±.03, P-value=0.005), whereas heart rate variability in semi-upright position was an independent predictor of the executive function score (B=−6.36±2.55, P-value=0.02). We conclude that myogenic vascular and sympathetic modulation of systolic BP do not contribute to reduced global cognitive performance in treated hypertensive subjects. Nevertheless, our results suggest that both systolic BP and heart rate variability might be associated with modulation of frontal lobe cognitive domains, such as executive function and matrix reasoning.

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Acknowledgements

We want to thank Professor Renato Veras and Professor Celia Caldas for allowing us to recruit subjects at the Universidade Aberta da Terceira Idade. We also thank Professor Harald Stauss for his thoughtful comments regarding the analyses of our results. We are thankful to CAPES and FAPERJ for the financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Medicine, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    W B Santos, J M D Matoso, M Casanova, I F H Moreira, R A Lourenço, W Oigman, M F T Neves & M L G Correia

  2. Physical Activity and Health Promotion Laboratory, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    M Maltez, W D Monteiro & P T V Farinatti

  3. Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Fluminense Federal University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    T Gonçalves & P P Soares

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  1. W B Santos
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Correspondence to W B Santos.

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Santos, W., Matoso, J., Maltez, M. et al. Spectral analyses of systolic blood pressure and heart rate variability and their association with cognitive performance in elderly hypertensive subjects. J Hum Hypertens 29, 488–494 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/jhh.2014.119

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