Heartbeat-Evoked Potentials Following Voluntary Hyperventilation in
Epilepsy Patients: Respiratory Influences on Cardiac Interoception
Abstract
Current evidence indicates a modulating role of respiratory processes in
cardiac interoception, yet whether altered breathing patterns can
influence heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEP) remains inconclusive. Here,
we examined the effects of voluntary hyperventilation (VH) on
scalp-recorded HEPs in epilepsy patients (N = 80). Using cluster-based
permutation analyses, HEP amplitudes were compared across pre-VH and
post-VH conditions within young and elderly subgroups, as well as for
the total sample. No HEP differences were detected for younger
participants or across the full sample, but results showed an increased
HEP amplitude at 530 – 560 ms after R-peak within the senior subgroup
during pre-VH compared to post-VH, denoting decreased cardiac
interoceptive processing as a function of breathing frequency in elderly
individuals. The present study, thus, provides initial evidence of
ventilatory-related HEP modulations in elderly epilepsy patients,
emphasizing HEP’s utility as an interoceptive neural marker that could
partially extend to the representation of pulmonary signaling. We
speculate that aberrant CO2-chemosensing, coupled with disturbances in
autonomic regulation, might constitute the underlying pathophysiological
mechanism behind the obtained effect. Available databases involving
patient records of routine VH assessment may constitute a valuable asset
in disentangling the interplay of cardiac and ventilatory interoceptive
information, providing thorough clinical data to parse, as well as
increased statistical power and estimates of effects with higher
precision through large-scale studies.