Effects of prolonged and repeated immersions on heart rate variability and complexity in military divers

• Published in: Undersea & hyperbaric medicine Vol. 44; no. 6; p. 589
• Main Authors: Berry, Nathaniel T, Wideman, Laurie, Rhea, Christopher K, Labban, Jeffrey D, Chon, Ki H, Shykoff, Barbara E, Haran, F J, Florian, John P
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.11.2017
• Subjects: complexity; water immersion; heart rate variability; cardiac dynamics
• ISSN: 1066-2936
• DOI: 10.22462/11.12.2017.10

The influence of prolonged and repeated water immersions on heart rate variability (HRV) and complexity was examined in 10 U.S. Navy divers who completed six-hour resting dives on five consecutive days. Pre-dive and during-dive measures were recorded daily. Dependent variables of interest were average heart rate (HR), time-domain measures of HRV [root mean square of successive differences of the normal RR (NN) interval (RMSSD), standard deviation of the NN interval (SDNN)], frequency-domain measures of HRV [low-frequency power spectral density (psd) (LFpsd), low-frequency normalized (LFnu), high-frequency psd (HFpsd), high-frequency normalized (HFnu), low-frequency/ high-frequency ratio (LF/HF)], and non-linear dynamics of HRV [approximate entropy (ApEn)]. A repeated-measures ANOVA was performed to examine pre-dive measure differences among baseline measures. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was performed to test the effects of prolonged and repeated water immersion on the dependent variables. Pre-dive HR (P=0.005) and RMSSD (P⟨0.001) varied significantly with dive day while changes in SDNN approached significance (P=0.055). HLM indicated that HR decreased during daily dives (P=0.001), but increased across dive days (P=0.011); RMSSD increased during daily dives (P=0.018) but decreased across dive days (P⟨0.001); SDNN increased during daily dives (P⟨0.001); LF measures increased across dive days (LFpsd P⟨0.001; LFnu P⟨0.001), while HF measures decreased across dive days (HFpsd P⟨0.001; HFnu P⟨0.001); LF/HF increased across dive days (P⟨0.001); ApEn decreased during daily dives (P⟨0.02) and across dive days (P⟨0.001). These data suggest that the cumulative effect of repeated dives across five days results in decreased vagal tone and a less responsive cardiovascular system.