ArticlePloS one2015
Head Exposure to Cold during Whole-Body Cryostimulation: Influence on Thermal Response and Autonomic Modulation.
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Repeated whole-body cryostimulation promotes a blood pressure reduction at rest in healthy adult men.European journal of applied physiology · 2026Trial
- Impact of acute partial-body cryostimulation on cognitive performance, cerebral oxygenation, and cardiac autonomic activity.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- The use of whole-body cryotherapy: time- and dose-response investigation on circulating blood catecholamines and heart rate variability.European journal of applied physiology · 2020Trial
- Partial-body cryostimulation after training improves sleep quality in professional soccer players.BMC research notes · 2019Trial
- Environmental conditions and cardiac autonomic function during an Antarctic summer expedition at James Ross Island.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Whole-Body Cryostimulation in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: A Case Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Effects of Whole-Body Cryostimulation on Stress Biomarkers and Psychological Well-Being in Parkinson's Disease: A Pilot Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Effects of repeated cryostimulation exposures on sleep quality in swimmers during an intense training period.Experimental physiology · 2025Article
- Whole-Body Cold Stimulation Improves Cardiac Autonomic Control Independently of the Employed Temperature.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Autonomic Modulation in Parkinson's Disease Using Whole-Body Cryostimulation: A Pilot Study.Biomedicines · 2024Article
- Impact of baseline arterial elasticity (stiffness) on left ventricular functions in healthy subjects exposed to short-term extreme cold.Journal of clinical hypertension (Greenwich, Conn.) · 2024Article
- The Effect of Whole-Body Cryostimulation in Healthy Adults : Whole-Body Cryostimulation According to Gender and Smoking Status.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent research on whole-body cryotherapy has hypothesized a major responsibility of head cooling in the physiological changes classically reported after a cryostimulation session. The aim of this experiment was to verify this hypothesis by studying the influence of exposing the head to cold during whole-body cryostimulation sessions, on the thermal response and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Over five consecutive days, two groups of 10 participants performed one whole-body cryostimulation session daily, in one of two different systems; one exposing the whole-body to cold (whole-body cryostimulation, WBC), and the other exposing the whole-body except the head (partial-body cryostimulation, PBC).10 participants constituted a control group (CON) not receiving any cryostimulation. In order to isolate the head-cooling effect on recorded variables, it was ensured that the WBC and PBC systems induced the same decrease in skin temperature for all body regions (mean decrease over the 5 exposures: -8.6°C ± 1.3°C and -8.3 ± 0.7°C for WBC and PBC, respectively), which persisted up to 20-min after the sessions (P20). The WBC sessions caused an almost certain decrease in tympanic temperature from Pre to P20 (-0.28 ± 0.11°C), while it only decreased at P20 (-0.14 ± 0.05°C) after PBC sessions. Heart rate almost certainly decreased after PBC (-8.6%) and WBC (-12.3%) sessions. Resting vagal-related heart rate variability indices (the root-mean square difference of successive normal R-R intervals, RMSSD, and high frequency band, HF) were very likely to almost certainly increased after PBC (RMSSD:+49.1%, HF: +123.3%) and WBC (RMSSD: +38.8%, HF:+70.3%). Plasma norepinephrine concentration was likely increased in similar proportions after PBC and WBC, but only after the first session. Both cryostimulation techniques stimulated the ANS with a predominance of parasympathetic tone activation from the first to the fifth session and in slightly greater proportion with WBC than PBC. The main result of this study indicates that the head exposure to cold during whole-body cryostimulation may not be the main factor responsible for the effects of cryostimulation on the ANS.
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