Effect of Mental Stress on Myocardial Perfusion in Women

Overview

Mental stress-induced myocardial ischemia(MSIMI) has been recognized a significant clinical problem. Evidence has shown that individuals with MSIMI have 2 to 2.5 times higher risk to develop a major averse cardiovascular events over 3-5 years, compared to their counterparts who have no MSIMI. Nevertheless, investigations into the study of MSIMI among women who have chest pain but artery stenosis \< 50% have been lacking. In this project, the investigators used positron emission tomography (PET) to evaluate perfusion defect during mental stress to diagnose MSIMI. Women with chest pain and coronary artery stenosis \< 50% were included as the experimental group, age-matched healthy people as the control group, the aim of this study is to compare the incidence of MSIMI in the two groups. At the same time, the study also observe the change of MBF during mental stress and the relationship between MBF and MSIMI.

The goals of this project are to assess MSIMI prevalence in chest pain women with coronary artery stenosis less than 50%, as compared to age matched healthy women, and the MBF change during mental stress and adenosine vasodilator stress by PET with N-13 ammonia . This study will also establish the methodology of echocardiography to diagnose MSIMI by comparing with PET. To evaluate the consistency of myocardial blood flow (MBF by PET-CT) and peripheral blood flow (PAT ratio by EndoPAT) during stress test. and to explore the pathogenesis of MSIMI from aspects of neuroendocrine mechanism, sex hormone level, humoral immunity index and proteome expression. The stress testing will be conducted at the PET-CT and echocardiography unit of Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital. Following a 20-minute calibration-rest period, participants will be asked to complete a series of 3 consecutive mental stress tasks. The mental stress tests are embedded in the virtual reality device, and the subjects can carry out the mental stress test with the virtual reality device on their heads. (1) Stroop Color-Word test, is administered by computer on a video monitor. A word appeared in the middle of the screen-Red, Green, Yellow, or Blue-in one of these four colors. At the bottom of the screen the words Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue appeared with the font color not matching the word meaning. The participant is asked to match the color of the word in the middle of the screen with the meaning of the color word at the bottom by clicking on the correct option, which lasts about 4 minutes. and then (2) Public speaking with anger recall: during this test, patients will be asked to give a speech on a recent situation in which they experienced anger to an audience of three observers (doctors) after 1 minute of preparation. Prior to the speech, subjects are told that their speech will be evaluated on their description of the situation, as to what happened, what they thought, felt, what they did, and what happened as a result. If they run out of things to say, the research tech will prompt them with questions to elicit more content until the three minutes are up. and at last the (3) Mental arithmetic: during this test, patients will be asked to perform a series of serial subtractions beginning at a given number which will be different for each repeated test and will be chosen by the tester from a fixed list of various numbers, with encouragement to perform calculations as quickly as possible; Each mental stress lasts for 4 minutes, there is no rest between the two mental stress, and the whole process of mental stress is 12 minutes.