dc.description.abstract | There are many physiological systems orchestrated together in maintaining the function of our body under various conditions and the interconnected interactions among different control mechanisms can be analogous to the basic riffs of music, a combination of music notes and rhythm. Baroreflex, a crucial physiological mechanism for blood pressure regulation, operates around 0.1 Hz and produces a prominent oscillatory wave of blood pressure signal known as Mayer’s wave. This study aims to discuss whether the baroreflex can be enhanced by listening to the music with different combinations of music notes and rhythm at 0.1 Hz and which combination can enhance the amplitude of the Mayer’s wave the most. In addition, we believed that the homeostatic control of blood pressure can be improved as a consequence of enhancing the baroreflex sensitivity.
The recruited subjects will undergo three different sessions consecutively for this study and during each session, the subjects will listen to one of the three different combinations of musical arrangements: (1) the music with loop melody (2) the same music without loop melody (3) only loop melody without music. During session 1 and 2, their musical arrangement are the same, except for the loop melody (rhythm) and during session (3), there is only the loop melody without other music. Between each session, there are 5-minute resting period to wash out the possible effects of music. The electrocardiogram, photoplethysmography, non-invasive continuous blood pressure and chest inductance plethysmography signals will be simultaneously recorded during the study.
The data will be processed by Matlab and the amplitudes of the Mayer’s wave can be quantified by calculating the power of the spectrum around 0.1 Hz using fast Fourier transform. In addition, the spectrogram will be constructed by wavelet transform for observing the dynamical changes of the oscillation of Mayer’s wave. Finally, the effects of different combinations of musical arrangements can be further analyzed by different biostatistics methods and hope the results can benefit those people with diminished baroreflex sensitivity such as patients with cardiovascular diseases. | en_US |