Associations between Heart Rate Variability and Brain Activity during a Working Memory Task: A Preliminary Electroencephalogram Study on Depression and Anxiety Disorder

Heart rate variability (HRV) has been suggested to reflect executive function and related neural activity. Executive dysfunction has been suggested to play an important role in the pathophysiology of emotional disorders. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether HRV showed a significant correlation with electroencephalogram (EEG) during a working memory performance in patients with depressive or anxiety disorder. A retrospective analysis was conducted with data from 61 patients with depressive disorder (43 women and 18 men) and 59 patients with anxiety disorder (35 women and 24 men). HRV was measured in the resting state, and EEG was recorded in the resting state and during the execution of a working memory task. It was performed in patients with depressive and anxiety disorder, and the paired sample t-test between resting state and task performance, as well as the partial correlation analysis between HRV and EEG, was conducted. Both depressed and anxious patients showed weaker beta relative power during the working memory task compared to the rest period. The resting-state EEG did not correlate with HRV parameters in both groups. In depressed patients, HRV showed a positive correlation with delta power during the task and a negative correlation with beta relative power during the task. In patients with anxiety disorder, HRV showed a significant positive correlation with theta power of the right frontal region during the task. Our results suggest that HRV would be related to executive-function-related neural activity in patients with depressive or anxiety disorder. Future studies with more subjects, including healthy controls, are needed to verify the correlation between HRV and EEG and to come up with a more comprehensive picture of neurobiological changes in emotional disorders.