Browsing by Author "Kincaid, John C."

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    Simultaneous noninvasive recording of skin sympathetic nerve activity and electrocardiogram
    (Elsevier, 2017-01) Doytchinova, Anisiia; Hassel, Jonathan L.; Yuan, Yuan; Lin, Hongbo; Yin, Dechun; Adams, David; Straka, Susan; Wright, Keith; Smith, Kimberly; Wagner, David; Shen, Changyu; Salanova, Vicenta; Meshberger, Chad; Chen, Lan S.; Kincaid, John C.; Coffey, Arthur; Wu, Gang; Li, Yan; Kovacs, Richard J.; Everett, Thomas H., IV; Victor, Ronald; Cha, Yong-Mei; Lin, Shien-Fong; Chen, Peng-Sheng; Medicine, School of Medicine
    BACKGROUND: Sympathetic nerve activity is important to cardiac arrhythmogenesis. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to develop a method for simultaneous noninvasive recording of skin sympathetic nerve activity (SKNA) and electrocardiogram (ECG) using conventional ECG electrodes. This method (neuECG) can be used to adequately estimate sympathetic tone. METHODS: We recorded neuECG signals from the skin of 56 human subjects. The signals were low-pass filtered to show the ECG and high-pass filtered to show nerve activity. Protocol 1 included 12 healthy volunteers who underwent cold water pressor test and Valsalva maneuver. Protocol 2 included 19 inpatients with epilepsy but without known heart diseases monitored for 24 hours. Protocol 3 included 22 patients admitted with electrical storm and monitored for 39.0 ± 28.2 hours. Protocol 4 included 3 patients who underwent bilateral stellate ganglion blockade with lidocaine injection. RESULTS: In patients without heart diseases, spontaneous nerve discharges were frequently observed at baseline and were associated with heart rate acceleration. SKNA recorded from chest leads (V1-V6) during cold water pressor test and Valsalva maneuver (protocol 1) was invariably higher than during baseline and recovery periods (P < .001). In protocol 2, the average SKNA correlated with heart rate acceleration (r = 0.73 ± 0.14, P < .05) and shortening of QT interval (P < .001). Among 146 spontaneous ventricular tachycardia episodes recorded in 9 patients of protocol 3, 106 episodes (73%) were preceded by SKNA within 30 seconds of onset. Protocol 4 showed that bilateral stellate ganglia blockade by lidocaine inhibited SKNA. CONCLUSION: SKNA is detectable using conventional ECG electrodes in humans and may be useful in estimating sympathetic tone.