Cardiac autonomic nerve activity was investigated in twenty-six heart failure patients with dilated cardiomyopathy

cardiac function-matched twenty-two with non-cardiomyopathic heart disease and twenty-five controls with aon-invasive

quantitative method Heart Rate Power Spectrum analysis (HRPS).A marked reduction of the power spectrum at low frequency (0.03-0.1Hz)

mid frequency (0.1-0.15Hz) and high frequency (0.2-0.4Hz) was found in the group of dilated cardiomyopathy and non-cardiomyopathic heart disease as compared with controls (P<0.01). The degree of power reduction at all frequency was related to the degree of cardiac dysfunction in. dilated cardiomyopathy and non-cardiomyopathic heart disease. The power spectrum at low frequency was reduced more in dilated cardiomyopathy than in non-cardiomyopathic heart disease (P<0.05). There was no difference of the power spectrum at mid and high frequency between dilated cardiomyo-pathy and non- ca-rdiomyopathic heart disease (P>0.05). It was shown that there was some impairment of cardiac autonomic nerve activity in dilated cardiomyopathy and non-cardiomyopathic heart disease and the impairment of cardiac sympathetic activity in dilated pardiomyopathy was much severe than that in non-cardiomyopathic heart disease