Autonomic influences on heart rate during marital conflict: Associations with high frequency heart rate variability and cardiac pre-ejection period

Abstract

Psychosocial factors predict the development and course of cardiovascular disease, perhaps through sympathetic and parasympathetic mechanisms. At rest, heart rate (HR) is under parasympathetic control, often measured as high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV). During stress, HR is influenced jointly by parasympathetic and sympathetic processes, the latter often quantified as pre-ejection period (PEP). In studies of cardiovascular risk factors that involve social interaction (e.g. marital conflict), HF-HRV might be altered by speech artifacts, weakening its validity as a measure of parasympathetic activity. To evaluate this possibility, we tested associations of HF-HRV and PEP with HR at rest and across periods of marital conflict interaction that varied in experimentally-manipulated degrees of speech in 104 couples. At rest, only HF-HRV was independently related to HR, for both husbands and wives. During speaking, listening, and recovery periods, husbands’ and wives’ HF-HRV and PEP change independently predicted HR change. These findings support interpretation of HF-HRV as a parasympathetic index during stressful social interactions that may confer risk for cardiovascular disease.