Abstract：Cerebral cortex can modulate cardiovascular activities, which is mediated by autonomic nervous system (ANS). The investigation of the underlying mechanism plays an important role in the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control of diseases such as arrhythmia, hypertension and heart failure. ECG, BP, chest impedance signals and near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) signals in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) were collected synchronously in 27 healthy subjects in supine condition and during 70° head-up tilt test (HUT). Heart rate variability (HRV) and Granger causality (GC) methods were applied to investigate cardiovascular responses in HUT and demonstrate the interactions between cerebral blood volume (CBV) in the MPFC and sympathetic/parasympathetic outflows (indicated by nLF and HF, respectively) as well as between CBV in the MPFC and RRI. Results showed that 1) CO decreased by 24% (P<0.001), HR and DBP increased by 35% (P<0.001) and 7% (P<0.001) respectively, while SBP almost showed no change compared with baseline even though it declined at the beginning of HUT; 2) nLF increased while HF decreased gradually, and then kept a relatively stable state with the former more activated (38.75±9.25 vs 58.62±8.58,P<0.001) while the latter less activated (1.11±0.76 vs 0.80±0.48,P<0.05) than the supine condition; 3) CBV in the MPFC was significantly correlated with both sympathetic and parasympathetic outflows and the correlation coefficients were 0.58 and 0.66 respectively; 4) GC showed frequency specificity with preference of “brain→heart” (P<0.05) in the frequency band of 0.04-0.15 Hz while “heart→brain” (P<0.001) in the frequency band of 0.15-0.4 Hz. Our results indicated that significant cardiovascular responses, mainly modulated by sympathetic and parasympathetic outflows, were elicited during HUT and that the MPFC was involved in the ANS-mediated cardiovascular control with ～0.1 Hz oscillations mediating the process. This study provided new evidence for the brain-heart coupling (the characteristic brain-heart interactions in healthy subjects during HUT) and we found that ～0.1 Hz oscillations play an important role in mediating cerebral autonomic control.
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