Bio-Psycho-Social Study Project “Clinical-Practical Validity of Vegetative Rhythms in Peripheral Physiological Signals”

The HEAD-Genuit Foundation funded the scientific study on the validity of vegetative rhythms by the German Society for Osteopathic Medicine (DGOM) from 2016 to 2023.

The vital processes in the human organism are subject to regulation by the autonomic nervous system (ANS). This applies to the regulation of both physiological and pathological processes. The characteristic ANS-controlled activities of different organs generate typical signals that can be detected peripherally and evaluated to assess ANS activity. Current findings show rhythmic variations with a frequency of 0.15 ± 0.03 Hz in skin perfusion, cardiac activity, respiration, and blood pressure during deep relaxation. The study directors hypothesized that this ANS rhythm corresponds to the phenomenon known in osteopathic medicine as the Cranial Rhythmic Impulse (CRI), which osteopathic medicine uses to manually transfer therapeutic effects from the therapist to the patient. The aim of the study was to provide evidence that the CRI is identical to the 0.15 Hz rhythm band, that the CRI emerges in the physiological subsystems of the adequately trained therapist and is transferred to the patient through appropriate therapeutic manipulations. This objective is of great clinical as well as fundamental physiological interest and a decisive step towards a scientific understanding of effects that have been known but not fully explainable. This basic physiological research on fundamental transfer phenomena will be significant in psychosomatics, hypnosis, autogenic training, etc., and especially in pain management.

Achievements / Milestones

• In the first phase of the study, the technical prerequisites were established to enable therapists who are not familiar with scientifically demanding biometric measurements to successfully conduct these measurements. This was achieved by designing multimodal data recording devices (so-called polygraphy devices) that synchronously record multiple cardiovascular signals (skin perfusion, HRV, respiration, skin resistance, accelerometer) of high quality from both therapist and patient.
• The most important finding from the initial study data is that the 0.15 Hz RB, which is considered central, couples in harmonic overtones and undertones in the measurements, synchronizes, and forms stable conditions in the ANS. The measurements carried out have shown that the frequencies are transferred from the therapist because the corresponding frequencies are almost exclusively detectable in the therapist temporally before they are detected in the subject.
• The last phase of the study focused on implementing the clinical study to verify effectiveness in chronic pain, including evaluation and publication. The psychosomatic, somatoform, and functional disorders studied are related through the associated pain phenomena.