Thinking about breathing: Effects on respiratory sinus arrhythmia

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), the increase and decrease in instantaneous heart rate (HR) with inspiration and expiration, is commonly evaluated as function of breathing frequency f. However, to the extent that RSA plays a role in the efficiency of gas exchange, it may be expected to correlate better with HR/f ('breathing specific heart rate') than with f, because the former is a better reflection of the cardio-respiratory coupling. We...