Reaction time to an auditory stimulus in the sympathetic activation
phase of the ultradian rhythm
Abstract
An increase in alternative activation in cerebral lateralisation with
the ultradian rhythm dominates sympathetic or parasympathetic phases. In
this study, we tested the reaction time (RT) of right-handed younger
people to an auditory stimulus by shifting the ultradian rhythm to the
sympathetic activation (SA) period. Twenty-three women and 7 men
students volunteered for our study. In the resting period and SA phase,
after measuring the participants’ blood pressure, heart rate, and nasal
dominance, we assessed their right and left-hand RTs against regular and
irregular auditory stimuli. SA was provided by running for 5 minutes on
a treadmill at a rate that doubled the resting heart rate. In the SA
phase, right-and left-hand RTs were accelerated in both stimulus types
compared to pre-exercise (p<.05). With regular stimuli, the
difference between right and left-hand RTs was insignificant in both the
resting period and SA (p>.05). However, with irregular
stimuli, the left-hand RT was faster than the right-hand RT for the
resting period and after SA (p<.01). We conclude that the
known superiority of the right hemisphere in processing non-verbal
sounds, and its greater functionality in the formation of attention
compared with the left hemisphere, accelerated the left-hand RT against
irregular stimuli. Although the right hand and the motor area of the
left hemisphere have an advantage of learned automatic motor skills, we
suppose that the right hemisphere is superior in reaching the non-verbal
sounds to the auditory cortex and the right auditory cortex processes
these sensory signals faster via short-cut pathways.