Specificity of cranial cutaneous manipulations in modulating autonomic nervous system responses and physiological oscillations: A controlled study

PLoS ONE, vol. 20, pp. e0317300

Abstract

Significant autonomic nervous system responses to a specific osteopathic intervention, the cranial vault hold (CVH), have recently been demonstrated in forehead skin blood volume changes, heart rate, and respiration frequencies. The specificity of the CVH-intervention-related autonomic responses yet requires differentiation. Thus, we compared autonomic responses to CVH with responses to compression of the fourth ventricle (CV4) and to two corresponding SHAM conditions. Analysis of frequencies and amplitudes for changes in skin blood volume and respiration in low (LF; 0.05-0.12 Hz), intermediate (IM; 0.12-0.18 Hz), and high (HF; 0.18-0.4 Hz) frequency bands, and metrics of heartrate variability revealed significant decreases in LF range (from 0.12 to 0.10 Hz), increased LF and decreased IM durations, and increased skin blood volume amplitudes in response to CVH, but no significant skin blood volume responses to any of the control interventions. Ratio changes for respiration and skin blood volume frequencies approximately at 3:1 during CVH, remained unchanged in all other interventions. Heart rate decreased across conditions, indicating an increase in parasympathetic tone. This was also indicated by a significant increase in root mean of squared successive difference following CV4. We incurred that rhythmic response patterns in the LF and IM bands only appeared in CVH. This suggests specific physiological responses to CVH warranting further investigation by studying e.g., responses to CVH in physical or mental health disorders with autonomic involvement.

Authors 10

1. Micha Keller corresponding Aachen Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Medical School

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

2. Volker Perlitz
   Affiliation as printed

   Simplana GmbH, Aachen, Germany

3. Holger Pelz
   Affiliation as printed

   Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteopathische Medizin e.V., Buxtehude, Germany

4. Štefan Borik

   University of Žilina

   Affiliation as printed

   Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Department of Electromagnetic and Biomedical Engineering, University of Zilina, Zilina, Slovakia

5. Ines Repik
   Affiliation as printed

   Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteopathische Medizin e.V., Mannheim, Germany

6. Armin Geilgens
   Affiliation as printed

   Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteopathische Medizin e.V., Mannheim, Germany

7. Hasan Birol Çotuk

   Marmara University

   Affiliation as printed

   Faculty of Sport Sciences, Department of Sport Health Sciences, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey

8. Gero Müller
   Affiliation as printed

   Raeren, Belgium

9. Klaus Mathiak Aachen Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Medical School

   RWTH Aachen University · Forschungszentrum Jülich · Jülich Aachen Research Alliance

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

   JARA-Brain, Research Center Jülich, Jülich, Germany

10. Johannes Mayer
    Affiliation as printed

    Deutsche Gesellschaft für Osteopathische Medizin e.V., Augsburg, Germany