To Investigate Heart Rate Variability and Resting State Functional Connectivity after the Practice of Short Sudarshan Kriya Yoga

Abstract

Breathing is one of essential human behaviors It can reflect different emotional expressions and is one of the strategies for manipulating autonomic tone and maintain emotion quality Sudarshan Kriya Yoga (SKY) is a breathing control intervention method Studies have demonstrated that SKY can improve negative affective sensation such as depressive emotion as well as improve cardiovascular function by increasing heart rate variability (HRV) and cardiac vagal tone However the neural mechanisms of which brain areas SKY may influence to change central and peripheral outcome on emotional releasing and autonomic activity are still unknown In this study forty-seven healthy participants who are beginners for SKY were recruited for finger pulse HRV analysis Then fifteen experienced participants who practice SKY more than one month were recruited for resting state magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and photoplethysmographic (PPG) HRV analysis Results showed that twelve brain regions increased and seven brain regions decreased their activity after SKY Most of these brain regions located in the prefrontal cortex Further analysis found that twenty brain regions correlated with HRV and SKY Among them anterior middle cingulate cortex (aMCC) was chosen as the seed region for functional connectivity analysis Results showed that seven brain regions had positive and six brain regions had negative connectivity with aMCC after SKY practice This study demonstrates that SKY not only increase HRV but also change brain areas related with emotional regulation

Date of Award	2018 Sept 1
Original language	English
Supervisor	A-Min Huang (Supervisor)