They were instead either given epinephrine (also known as adrenaline), or a placebo drug. Participants were told that their vision would be tested after they were given vitamins – it appeared to the participants to be a fairly basic medical study. The activity of the heart can also interact with the brain, and ultimately change how we feel.Īn influential study by Schacter and Singer in 1962 showed how this occurs.

While it can operate independently, it has many deep and intricate connections to the brain, which can set its rhythm depending on the needs of the body at any given moment. The rhythmic contractions of the heart occur spontaneously, but are sensitive to nervous or hormonal influences, particularly to sympathetic (arousing) and parasympathetic (decelerating) activity.The heart operates automatically – it is self-exciting (this is a unique feature compared to other muscles in the body that require nervous stimuli for excitation).The frequency of the cardiac cycle is reflected as heart rate (beats per minute, or bpm). The cardiac cycle refers to a complete heartbeat from its initial squeezing of the blood into the atria, to the emptying of the ventricles.These loops ensure that the blood is either being oxygenated in the lungs or is providing that oxygen to other parts of the body where it is needed.The circulation of the heart is therefore split into a “loop” – one part goes through through the lungs (the pulmonary loop) and the other through the body (the systemic loop).

The blood comes into the top atria after returning from either the lungs or other parts of the body and is then pumped into the lower ventricles, before being pumped back out again (to the alternate destination to where it just was).The upper two chambers (the left and right atrium) are entry points into the heart, while the lower two chambers (the left and right ventricle) are contraction chambers that send blood out to the body. This allows us to understand the level of physiological arousal that someone is experiencing, but it can also be used to better understand someone’s psychological state.īelow we’ll go through the importance of physiological arousal in emotions, the physiology of the heart, how the activity can be measured, and what parameters are of interest.īefore we dig deeper into the fundamentals of ECG, let’s go through the basics of heart physiology and function: ECG (electrocardiography) is a method of collecting electrical signals generated by the heart.

Brain products cardiograph