Abstract
Neuroticism is associated with cardiovascular disease, autonomic reactivity, and depression. Here we address the extent to which neuroticism accounts for the excess heart disease risk associated with depression and test whether cardiac autonomic tone plays a role as mediator. Subjects were derived from a nationally representative sample (n = 1,255: mean age 54.5, SD = 11.5). Higher neuroticism was associated with reduced heart rate variability equally under rest and stress. The baseline structural equation model revealed significant paths from neuroticism to heart rate variability, cardiovascular disease and depression, and between depression and cardiovascular disease, controlling for age, sex, height, weight, and BMI. Dropping both the neuroticism to heart rate variability, and neuroticism to heart disease paths significantly reduced the model fit (p < .001 in each case). We conclude that neuroticism has independent associations with both autonomic reactivity and cardiovascular disease, over and above its associations with depression and other related variables.
Highlights
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and depression are two of the major disease burdens [1,2]
Neuroticism scores were used as the dependent variable and Standard deviation of beat-to-beat intervals (SDRR) under stress, and SDRR at baseline as the independent variables, and age, sex, BMI, height, and weight were entered as covariates prior to SDRR
Same was true for the association between neuroticism and SDRR in the baseline condition: the model was again significant (R2 = 0.07, F(8, 917) = 9.11, p
Summary
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and depression are two of the major disease burdens [1,2]. We were able to examine HRV measured in two conditions: at rest, and under stress This allowed initial tests of whether neuroticism functions as a trait marker for cardiovascular health (i.e., is associated with HRV under both baseline and stress conditions, our preferred hypothesis) or was rather related to HRV only in the stress condition. We first tested this relationship, and moved to the main modeling hypotheses: that neuroticism would show significant path loadings on heart disease, on depression, and on HRV, independent of each other. All analyses controlled for covariates linked to HRV: age, sex, height, weight, and BMI
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