Channeling of Brain Towards Engaging Sensorimotor Tasks for Inducing Hedonic Pleasure to Alleviate Blood Pressure in Hypertension

Abstract

Background: Hypertension is a modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease and is responsible for major deaths due to stroke and coronary heart disease. Several pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions for reducing blood pressure have been tried earlier. Modulating brain regions such as prefrontal cortex (PFC) to channelize activities is an effective tool to target blood pressure. Purpose: Prefrontal cortex (PFC) exerts inhibitory control over sympathoexcitatory circuits, which was explored using a novel reaction time paradigm. Methods: Thirty participants of both genders in the age group 40–70 years with established hypertension were included. A structured reaction time paradigm was designed to include psychomotor and visuomotor elements with integrated sensory attention and motor performance tasks. Blood pressure, Lead II ECG, and EEG from F3 and F4 were recorded. A paired t-test was used to examine the variations in these parameters across tasks. Results: A significant reduction in mean arterial pressure by 4.04 mmHg (p =.0232) during the visuomotor task and a reduction of 3.38 mmHg during the auditory cue task (p =.0446) were observed. Analysis of the difference in heart rate has shown a profound decrease after passive listening tasks by 3.7 beats (p