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Vagal changes following cancer chemotherapy: Implications for the development of nausea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2000

GARY R. MORROW ,
PAUL L.R. ANDREWS ,
JANE T. HICKOK  and
ROBERT STERN
GARY R. MORROW
Affiliation:
Behavioral Medicine Unit, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, New York, USA
PAUL L.R. ANDREWS
Affiliation:
Department of Physiology, St. George's Hospital Medical School, London, UK
JANE T. HICKOK
Affiliation:
Behavioral Medicine Unit, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, New York, USA
ROBERT STERN
Affiliation:
Psychology Department, Penn State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
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Abstract

Many physiological changes that occur contemporaneously with nausea are mediated by the autonomic nervous system, but the specific autonomic changes associated with nausea have not been characterized. Cardiac parasympathetic (vagal) activity as indicated by heart rate variability, measured as the standard deviation of successive differences (SDSD) in beat-to-beat intervals, was assessed in 24 women with ovarian cancer immediately prior to and accompanying nausea that occurred following anticancer chemotherapy. A progressive increase in SDSD followed infusion of the chemotherapy agent, indicating a rise in cardiac parasympathetic (vagal) activity, with onset of nausea consistently occurring after the peak activity had been reached, at a time when SDSD was decreasing. An increase in parasympathetic activity seems to set the stage for the expression of nausea but an additional stimulus is apparently needed to finally trigger the event.

Keywords

NauseaCancerChemotherapyAutonomic nervous systemParasympathetic nervous systemHeart rate variability
Type
Research Article
Information
Psychophysiology , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , May 2000 , pp. 378 - 384
Copyright
© 2000 Society for Psychophysiological Research

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