Cardiovascular functions have to answer to important physiological stimulations during physical activity, high altitude exposure, or specific stimulation tests of the autonomic nervous system. In this thesis work, we studied autonomic modulations after exercise (training/competition or retraining), hypoxia or adrenergic stimulation tests in order to link them with fatigue and/or effort limitation. Senior runners' follow-up allowed us to observe an increase in sympathetic activity and also a decrease in parasympathetic tone with training and particularly competition. In a second time, we analyzed the adaptive responses of subjects exposed to rough hypoxia through orthostatic tests and we highlighted a transitional dysautonomia during the first two days of altitude exposure followed by a return to basal values on the fourth day. Our third protocol has demonstrated that fibromyalgic patients show altered life quality and exercise capacity and also blunted autonomic responses to orthostatism compared to control subjects. However, twelve weeks of endurance training in moderate intensity seems to be beneficial on patients' life quality and improves exercise parameters and modulation of the activity of the nervous system. Finally, we have confirmed that subjects with Down syndrome showed altered exercise capacity and cardio-respiratory function in comparison to aged matched control subjects. Stimulation tests of the autonomic nervous system also show a marked dysautonomia with blunted autonomic responses, which can be linked to a limited effort capacity and/or to the appearance of an early fatigue to exercise in subjects with Down syndrome. Our work, thanks to cardiac variability analysis highlighted alterations in autonomic activity, which could be lasting or transient, depending on the environment, the activity level or the existence of pathologies.
