Effect of mental workload on autonomic cardiovascular control.

Address for corespondence:\ud Dr. Rouja Nikolova, MD;\ud Laboratory for Work Physiology and Psychology; National Center of Public Health Protection; 1431 BulgariaPsychophysiological and occupational medicine determination\ud of mental work load of air traffi c controllers (ATC) reveal that ATC are exposed\ud to increased level of work load. The purpose of the study is to determine the\ud effect of mental work load on autonomic cardiovascular control assessed with\ud Heart Rate Variability (HRV) measures in air traffi c controllers from Sofi a airport.\ud Results of our study indicate that the effect of mental work load in ATC might\ud accelerate the ageing process and induces changes in autonomic cardiovascular\ud control – decrease of parasympathetic activity and increase of sympathetic\ud activity. The level of work load of ATC working at the airport control might induce\ud change of the pattern of autonomic cardiovascular control with prevalence of\ud the sympathetic activity. The results of our study indicate that HRV measures\ud might be a useful tool for the assessment of the effect of work load on autonomic\ud cardiovascular control