Respiratory and cardiovascular responsivity to Classical Turkish Music in schizophrenia

The purpose of this study was to compare the autonomic signals in response to Classical Turkish Music (CTM) of schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. Respiration and blood volume pulse signals were recorded in the rest and auditory stimulation periods from fifty participants. Respiration rate, heart rate and beat-to-beat interval values were extracted as features. Results indicated that patients had higher respiration and heart rate than controls in all the periods. Although CTM evoked a much more increase in respiration rate in controls, no significant respiration rate differences were found between stimulation periods in the schizophrenia patients. While accelerated heart rate values obtained during stimulation periods in the control group, a deceleration was found in the patients. In conclusion, our study has shown that respiration and heart rate responses to CTM might be used as discriminating features to compare autonomic differences between schizophrenics and controls.