Cardiac autonomic modulation simultaneous to acupuncture in multiple sclerosis

Introduction: Acupuncture may improve some symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS). Objectives: To evaluate the heart rate variability in individuals with MS during the applicability of acupuncture. Methods: We evaluated 14 individuals without previous disease (control group) and 14 with MS (experimental group), matched by age and gender. Participants performed active (A) or sham (S) acupuncture sessions. The groups performed 1 session, combined with assessment of heart rate variability (HRV) for 10 minutes at rest sitting before the intervention, followed by 20 minutes during the intervention in the supine position and another 10 minutes immediately after the intervention in the sitting position. Results: The MS group consisted of 11 women and 3 men, age 46.5±13.4 years, randomized into active (5) or sham (9), and 14 controls. Considering the indices of the time domain, in the Mean HR index the MS-A and Control-S groups, in the recovery it remained significantly lower compared to the initial rest. All indices that represent the parasympathetic system in general showed an increase in rest for acupuncture in all groups, and in the Control groups (S and A), there was an increase in rest for and in the Control-S Group it high in recovery when compared to the rest moment. In global domain indexes the SDNN index showed an increase only in the Control-S group from rest to acupuncture, which remained at the time of recovery. For analysis of HRV in the frequency domain indices, the LF of all groups showed a significant reduction in resting time for acupuncture. Conclusion: supine rest leads to greater parasympathetic predominance in people with MS regardless of whether acupuncture is performed in this posture or not, one acupuncture session did not lead to greater parasympathetic influence on the heart.