Abstract

Background: Autonomic nervous system is involved in the learning behavior of animals. High sympathetic activation favors arousal, attention, memory and learning. However in humans evidence exists for increased sympathetic conditions impairing cognitive performance as well as poor sympathetic activation in diseases affecting cognition. This conflicting observation in literature warrants for further scientific study. Therefore the present study attempts to observe the association between the state of autonomic nervous system and cognitive ability. This is accomplished by observing the association between heart rate variability (HRV) which reflects the autonomic nervous system state and academic performance as a measurand of cognitive ability. Material & Methods: Cross sectional observational type of study with sample size of 102 healthy young subjects in which 34 are boys and 68 girls between 18 -22 years were included in the study by convenient sampling after carefully assessing for the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Heart Rate Variability is computed under standard conditions as per Task Force Recommendations in time and frequency domains. The academic performance is assessed by university examination marks at the end of first year. The association between HRV parameters are academic performance is assessed by spearman correlation and type I error allowance fixed at 5%. Results & Interpretation: Resting heart rates showed significant positive correlation with academic performance. All time domain indices of HRV showed significant negative correlation with academic performance. Frequency domain parameters indicated a positive correlation between percentage and normalized low frequency powers with parameters of academic performance and negative correlation between percentage and normalized high frequency powers with parameters of academic performance. However frequency domain parameters did not associate in a statistically significant manner with parameters of academic performance. Conclusion: Results reflect high resting sympathetic tone in better academic performance and study concludes that increased sympathetic tone is associated with better cognitive ability.

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