Heart period variability and depressive symptoms: Gender differences

Background: Deceased heart period variability has been associated with cardiac events and depressive symptoms; however, the results of studies are not unequivocal. We hypothesize that gender differences in the various study samples may have contributed to the lack of uniformity of findings. Methods: Time and frequency domain measures of heart period variability during a 5-min resting baseline,cere examined in 15 depressed (8 female) and II nondepressed (6 female) college students. Results: Both time and frequency domain measures indicated an interaction between gender and depressive symptoms, such that depressed male subjects showed less heart period variability, whereas depressed female subjects showed more heart period variability compared to their nondepressed counterparts. Conclusions: These results suggest that future studies investigating the relationship between heart period variability and depressive symptoms examine gender differences. Biol Psychiatry 1998;34:304-306 Published 1988 Society of Biological Psychiatry.