The Blood Vessel, Brain, and Immune System Connections
Mark C Houston in The Truth About Heart Disease, 2023
You have heard about the “flight or fight reaction” or the “rest and relax reaction”. These opposing reactions are related to the three distinct and major parts of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), called the “sympathetic nervous system” (SNS), the “parasympathetic nervous system” (PNS), and the “enteric nervous system” (ENS) (related to our gut) (Figure 14.1). The SNS and PNS systems oppose each other to give us a balance that is important to regulate the brain and entire nervous system with the arteries, heart, endocrine system, gut, and immune system. This internal communication is very important. If any of the SNS, PNS, or ENS predominates, it can lead to many cardiovascular problems and diseases. The autonomic nervous system is a component of the peripheral nervous system that regulates involuntary processes of our physiology and daily functions, including heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, digestion, and sexual arousal (Table 14.1).
Introduction: Background Material
Nassir H. Sabah in Neuromuscular Fundamentals, 2020
The peripheral nervous system has two main subdivisions (Figure 1.6): The somatic nervous system, concerned with sensory input to the central nervous system and with motor output to skeletal muscle.The autonomic nervous system, concerned with the control of visceral functions such as heart rate, digestion, respiration, and perspiration. The autonomic nervous system has two main subdivisions: (i) the sympathetic nervous system, involved in the “fight-or-flight” response that mobilizes the body to respond to stressful or threatening conditions, and (ii) the parasympathetic nervous system, concerned with activities of the body at rest, such as digestion and waste elimination. Most organs and systems of the body receive both sympathetic and parasympathetic stimulation acting in opposition, thereby providing a more effective, finer control.
Nervous System
Charles Paul Lambert in Physiology and Nutrition for Amateur Wrestling, 2020
The Nervous System is very important when talking about athletic training and physiology. First, the Nervous System connects to the muscles and causes the muscles to contract as a result of conscious effort. Second, the sympathetic division of the autonomic Nervous System along with the hormones secreted from the adrenal medulla and adrenal cortex acts to cause a “fight or flight” reaction which prepares and engages bodies in times of stress such as training and wrestling matches. Third, the parasympathetic Nervous System is very important in recovery from training; it is called the “rest and digest” portion of the autonomic Nervous System. The overall organization of the Nervous System can be broken down into the Central Nervous System, the brain and spinal cord, and the Peripheral Nervous System which is everything else (Table 4.1). Within the Peripheral Nervous System, it can be broken down into the Somatic Nervous System which deals with the Skeletal Muscles and the Autonomic Nervous System which deals with the Cardiac Muscle, Smooth Muscle, and Glands. Additionally, further subcategories are Motor Nervous System and Sensory Nervous System. The Motor Nervous System is involved in sending conscious impulses to the muscles with voluntary effort while the Sensory Nervous System usually receives sensory input and propagates the impulse up to the Central Nervous System for evaluation.
Association between older subjective age and poor sleep quality: a population-based study
Published in Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 2023
Jee-Eun Yoon, Dana Oh, Inha Hwang, Jung Ah Park, Hee-Jin Im, Robert J. Thomas, Daeyoung Kim, Kwang Ik Yang, Min Kyung Chu, Chang-Ho Yun
Levy’s stereotype embodiment theory has been proposed to explain the linkage between SA and health outcomes through psychological, behavioral, and physiological pathways (Levy, 2009). In this psychological pathway, age stereotypes generate expectations that act as self-fulfilling prophecies. It posits that negative age stereotypes are integrated into negative self-evaluation, which then contributes to poor outcomes (Levy & Leifheit-Limson, 2009). The behavioral pathway is exemplified by the fact that healthy practices facilitate engagement in preventive or health-promoting behaviors (Levy & Myers, 2004). Lastly, the physiological pathway involves the autonomic nervous system, especially heightened cardiovascular responses to stress (Levy et al., 2000). Given the multidimensional association between SA and health outcomes, a recent study examined the association between self-perceptions of aging and sleep difficulties using the awareness of age-related change questionnaire (Sabatini et al., 2021a). The construct of the questionnaire captures the complexity of dynamics in individual aging attitudes across the five domains (health and physical functioning, cognitive functioning, interpersonal relations, social-cognitive and social-emotional functioning, and lifestyle and engagement; Diehl & Wahl, 2010). Subjective sleep difficulties were strongly related to awareness of negative age-related change (Sabatini et al., 2021a).
Association of Hypnotizability, Interoception, and Emotion
Published in International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2023
Žan Zelič, Laura Sebastiani, Enrica Laura Santarcangelo
Throughout the history of physiology, the autonomic nervous system has been seen as a predominantly efferent motor system with the addition of a few afferents that enable homeostatic regulation (Berntson et al., 2019). Contemporary research findings dispute this view by showing that the role of visceral afferents is much more important, with visceral inputs being involved in several emotional and cognitive processes (Critchley & Harrison, 2013). Deficits in interoceptive abilities have been shown to play an important role in the development of different psychopathologies (Khalsa et al., 2018). Recently, some promising findings about the possibilities of improving the perception of visceral signals through brief interoceptive and mindfulness training have been published (de Lima-Araujo et al., 2022; Sugawara et al., 2020). Since hypnotizability is a psychophysiological trait characterized by morphofunctional differences in brain areas that are relevant to interoception (Landry et al., 2017; Picerni et al., 2019), as well as by better functional equivalence between imagery and perception (Ibáñez-Marcelo et al., 2019), we hypothesize that hypnotizability assessment may be of great importance in diagnostic processes as well as in the development of personalized interoceptive training.
Body fat and muscle in relation to heart rate variability in young-to-middle age men: a cross sectional study
Published in Annals of Human Biology, 2023
Selma Cvijetic, Jelena Macan, Dario Boschiero, Jasminka Z. Ilich
The autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates a number of physiological processes and its actions are largely involuntary. It is functionally divided into the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), acting opposingly to complement each other (Svorc 2018). The SNS and PNS release neurotransmitters that bind to the appropriate receptors on the cells, resulting in different biological effects (McCorry 2007). Both SNS and PNS regulate heart rate variability (HRV – the variance in time between heart beats), sending opposing signals for faster or slower beats, respectively (Svorc 2018). Therefore, HRV is commonly used as an indicator of ANS activity with sympathetic and parasympathetic activity modifying the heart rate intervals at distinct frequencies and in opposing manners (Tokić 2016; Shaffer and Ginsberg 2017). The HRV refers to the heart’s capability to react to various physiological and environmental influences, with lower HRV generally indicating a poorer autonomic function and reduced capacity of the body to deal with different stressors (Tracey 2007; Shaffer and Ginsberg 2017; Kim et al. 2018).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Brainstem
- Heart Rate
- Nervous System
- Pupillary Response
- Reflex
- Urination
- Digestion
- Respiratory Rate
- Sexual Arousal
- Fight-Or-Flight Response