ArticleCNS neuroscience & therapeutics2025
Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Alleviates Subthreshold Depression by Reconstructing the Brain-Heart Axis via Habenular Network Functional Connectivity Modulation.
Article in CNS neuroscience & therapeutics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Advanced neuroimaging in pediatric epilepsy surgery: state of the art and future perspectives.Neuroradiology · 2026Review
- Artificial intelligence in neurocardiology: decoding brain-heart network interactions for clinical and translational insights.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Alleviates Subthreshold Depression by Reconstructing the Brain-Heart Axis via Habenular Network Functional Connectivity Modulation.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimsTo investigate the role of the habenula (Hb)-centered brain network in regulating the cardiac autonomic nervous system (ANS) in subthreshold depression (StD), and to explore the brain-heart axis mechanisms underlying the antidepressant effects of heart rate variability biofeedback (HRV-BF) as a non-pharmacological intervention.
methodsThirty four StD participants and 32 healthy controls (HC) completed scale assessments (HAMD-17, PHQ-9, and PSQI) and cardiovascular measurements. StD participants received a 4-week HRV-BF with pre- and post-rs-BOLD fMRI. Bilateral Hb was used as the seed for ROI- and voxel-wise functional connectivity (FC) analyses. To minimize potential confounding effects of sex imbalance, only female participants were included in voxel-wise FC analysis (StD group, n = 8; HC group, n = 11) and pre-post intervention comparisons in ROI-wise FC analysis(StD group, n = 8).
resultsStD participants exhibited elevated heart rate, reduced HRV indices (lnRMSSD, HF power, lnSDNN), and increased LF power. ROI-wise FC analysis revealed that with increasing depression scores, z-transformed functional connectivity (zFC) value between the Hb and the nucleus accumbens (NAc), ventral pallidum (VeP), amygdala, globus pallidus internus (GPi), and substantia nigra (SN) shifted from positive to negative, indicating a transition from functional connectivity coupling to anti-coupling. Among these, Hb-NAc and Hb-VeP showed high discriminatory power (AUC = 0.876, p < 0.001). Voxel-wise FC analysis demonstrated weakened Hb functional connectivity with several key regions within the default mode network, salience network, central executive network, visual network, and sensorimotor network, including precuneus, right posterior cingulate cortex, left middle cingulate cortex, right superior parietal lobule, cuneus, right calcarine cortex, left superior occipital gyrus, right paracentral lobule, and right postcentral gyrus. A 4-week HRV-BF intervention improved HRV indices and partially restored the functional connectivity of Hb-centered networks, accompanied by significant improvements in depressive symptoms and sleep quality.
conclusionAberrant Hb-centered functional connectivity may contribute to cardiac autonomic dysfunction in StD. Specifically, Hb-NAc and Hb-VeP functional connectivity may serve as neuroimaging biomarkers for StD. HRV-BF enhances vagal tone, rebalances cardiac ANS function, and partly restores Hb-centered brain network functional connectivity, thereby alleviating depressive symptoms and improving sleep quality. These findings highlight that Hb may be a key hub within the brain-heart axis and suggest this pathway as a promising early non-pharmacological intervention target.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.