Cardiac Autonomic Functions During Head-out Immersion and During Head Down Tilt

Head down tilt (HDT) was widely used to simulate microgravity effects on cardiovascular system. HDT could be a suitable model of water immersion (WI) which is also used to simulate the cardiovascular effects of microgravity and which is not easy to study in laboratory. To define the possibility to simulate immersion by HDT, a comparison between these models is required. A comparison between WI and few angles during HDT seems necessary to understand which angle is more adapt.

The immersion induces an increase of the central blood volume. This increase is caused by a redistribution of blood from peripheral portions of the body to the intrathoracic circulation. It seems to load cardiopulmonary and arterial baroreceptors. These baroreceptors bring into play autonomic nervous system (ANS) activation and induce a bradycardia.

HDT induces an increase in central blood volume as supported by the central venous pressure and cardiac volume increase and in return, MSNA and heart rate decrease. These cardiovascular effects seem to be the same as the thermoneutral immersion and suggest that the ANS activation is the same during HDT and WI.

Nevertheless, a few previous studies about ANS in HDT indicate some discordant results: a sympathetic decrease was reported but several results show an increase of parasympathetic activity linked with a trend of increase of arterial baroreflex. The aim of this study is to assess ANS activity in HDT on different angles (-6° and -15°) and WI. The investigators suppose an increase of parasympathetic activity during WI corresponding to parasympathetic activation during HDT especially at -6°.