Does visual attention affect heart rate variability in young infants?
Heart rate variability decreases during sustained visual attention in infants, suggesting increased parasympathetic vagal influence.
Heart rate variability during visual attention was studied in infants who were tested cross-sectionally at 14, 20, or 26 weeks of age. They were presented with a recording of a Sesame Street program on a TV screen. After heart rate had decelerated below the prestimulus level and then returned to prestimulus level, a computer-generated pattern replaced the Sesame Street display. Heart rate variability changed throughout attention. The change consisted of a decrease in variability during attention and a return to prestimulus levels approximately five seconds following attention termination. The heart rate and variability responses are consistent with a model of parasympathetic vagal influence on the heart in which vagal firing is increased during sustained attention and is inhibited during attention termination.
Richards et al. (Tue,) studied this question.