ENVIRONMENTAL-EFFECTS ON CARDIOVASCULAR REACTIVITY

The hypothesis on which this paper is based states that the environmen t where subjects live has a modifying effect on their psychophysic rea ctivity when faced with unknown stressing stimuli. To prove such hypot hesis, subjects of an isolated country village were studied. An urban sample was used as control. Vascular reactivity was used to determine psychophysics reactivity. Both groups were submitted in their respecti ve environments to a standardized conflicting stimulus which was produ ced by a device developed in our laboratory. The variables of cardiova scular reactivity were systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR). Paired samples by age and basal SB P were used (N = 24 pairs). The results of this experience showed that city dwellers had significantly higher SBP increments than country dw ellers. After discussing different variables that may have accounted f or these results, it was concluded that city life increases the psycho physics reactivity of city dwellers when faced with stressing stimuli as compared to country dwellers.