Basal Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Research Articles

Shy, happy, calm, and controlled: Temperament correlates of socioemotional adjustment in toddlerhood.

Understanding heterogeneity in shy or inhibited children's risk for poor socioemotional adjustment can inform intervention targets. The present study considered temperament traits associated with approach and regulation that may alter trajectories away from internalizing behaviors and poor socioemotional competence among shy toddlers. Fifty-five 22-24-month-old children (22 boys) preselected for parent-reported shyness were observed during laboratory tasks designed to measure shyness, activity level, positive affect, and inhibitory control between January 2016 and January 2018. Basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was obtained for a subset of the sample from recordings of cardiac activity as toddlers watched a neutral video. Hierarchical regression analyses predicted internalizing and competence from activity level, positive affect, inhibitory control, and basal RSA, alone and in interaction with shyness, while controlling for child gender. Activity level was positively associated with internalizing behaviors, and inhibitory control and positive affect were negatively associated with internalizing behaviors. Importantly, shyness was associated with more internalizing behaviors among children low in inhibitory control or high in basal RSA, but not among children high in inhibitory control or low in basal RSA. Relations between temperament traits and socioemotional adjustment were specific to internalizing behaviors and did not generalize to competence. The present findings suggest that in toddlerhood positive affect and inhibitory control may serve as protective factors for shy children, lessening risk for internalizing problems, whereas high activity or greater basal RSA may forecast risk. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Impact of stress and parenting on respiratory sinus arrythmia trajectories in early adolescence.

The effects of stress and parenting on 1-year trajectories of physiological emotion regulation capacity among adolescents were examined. Consistent with the vulnerability-stress and allostatic load models, stress (chronic family and marital) was hypothesized to be associated with less favorable trajectories of basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) over 1 year. This relationship was further hypothesized to be moderated by parenting practices (warmth, neglect, and rejection) and adolescent sex. Participants included 150 adolescents (51.3% female), 11-15 years of age (M=13.04, SD=0.89). Basal RSA and stress were assessed four times across 1 year. Results indicated a significant decrease in RSA over the course of 1 year (β=-0.15, p=.010). Warm parenting style was associated with lower RSA in environments of low marital stress and was also related with higher RSA in environments of high marital stress (β=0.86, p=.021). Rejecting parenting styles were associated with higher RSA in environments of low family stress and lower RSA in environments of high family stress (β=-0.60, p=.014). These findings may be explained by the Yerkes-Dodson law of optimal stress, suggesting that sufficient environmental challenge is needed to catalyze regulatory development.

Getting Specific about Emotion and Self-Inflicted Injury: An Examination Across Emotion Processes in Borderline Personality Disorder

This study aimed to examine which specific emotion processes influence self-inflicted injury: basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia, baseline negative emotional intensity, emotional reactivity, or emotion regulation deficits. Self-injuring individuals with borderline personality disorder (N = 22) reported their lifetime self-injury frequency. Basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia and baseline skin conductance responses measurements were collected. Participants then either reacted as they usually would (i.e., emotional reactivity), or utilized mindfulness- or distraction-based strategies (i.e., emotion regulation), in response to negative images while self-reported negative emotion and skin conductance were monitored. Higher basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia and baseline emotional intensity predicted higher lifetime self-injury frequency. Chronic, resting emotion processes may be more important targets for reducing self-injury compared to labile, acute emotion processes.

Shy toddlers act bold: The roles of respiratory sinus arrhythmia and parent emotion language

Shy children show reticence in social contexts, presumably as a way of regulating their fear. The present study evaluated whether toddler physiological regulation and parent emotion language facilitated shy toddlers’ (21–24 months) engagement with an unfamiliar female examiner. Toddler high basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia was positively associated with bold approach with the examiner. Parent emotion explanations were positively associated with toddler bold approach, particularly for toddlers with low basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Findings suggest that toddlers’ dispositional capacity for regulation and parents’ explanations of emotion in everyday conversations with their toddlers may help shy toddlers to socially engage.

Children's Anxious Characteristics Predict how their Parents Socialize Emotions.

Emotion socialization by parents contributes to children's trajectories of healthy and unhealthy emotional development, but there has been little research into the determinants and development of parental emotion socialization. We examined whether young children's anxious characteristics, including expressed anxiety with peers and low basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), predicted changes in mothers' and fathers' emotion socialization over the subsequent year. Using regression and regions of significance analyses, we observed that children's expressed anxiety moderated the stability of mothers' and fathers' supportive and unsupportive emotion socialization, primarily in ways that would be likely to maintain or exacerbate children's social anxiety. For example, mothers' highly fretful and less supportive responses were more stable when children had been more anxious with peers. Basal RSA moderated the stability of fathers' punitive responses to children's anxious and sad emotions, and directly predicted changes in mothers' neglect of children's anxious and sad emotions, and negative and positive feelings about children's social withdrawal. These effects of children's characteristics on parents' emotions and behaviors support bidirectional and transactional models of the socialization of children's anxiety and internalizing problems, and identify aspects of emotion socialization by parents that could be amenable to intervention.

Children's behavioral inhibition and anxiety disorder symptom severity: The role of individual differences in respiratory sinus arrhythmia

Although behavioral inhibition (BI) is clearly identified as a temperamental risk factor for childhood anxiety psychopathology, much less is known about whether the strength of this association may vary as a function of parasympathetic nervous system regulation in children with anxiety disorders. To build upon extant research in this area, the present study examined whether respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) can explicate the conditions in which BI is linked to increased symptom severity among anxiety-disordered children (N = 44; M = 9.61 years, SD = 1.63; 52% female and African American, respectively). We examined RSA responding both during a basal period and during a stressor (“challenge” RSA): interacting with a “mystery guest” who was wearing a mask. As hypothesized, the interaction between BI and both basal and challenge RSA was significantly related to anxiety disorder symptom severity, even after controlling for depressive symptoms. The form of the interaction indicated that highest levels of anxiety disorder symptoms were found among children with high levels of BI and low basal and challenge RSA, respectively. These data provide novel empirical evidence of a clinically-relevant interplay between RSA and BI in relation to anxiety disorder symptom severity among clinical youth. Future work is needed to expand on the specific mechanisms that may be responsible e for the interplay between temperamental and psychobiological risks for childhood anxiety.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as a predictor of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors among adolescents

Research suggests that self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs) may function as maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. One psychophysiological index of emotion regulatory capacity is respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). The temporal course of RSA responsivity to a stressor may be characterized by basal RSA, RSA reactivity to stressor, and RSA recovery post-stressor. RSA has been linked to both internalizing and externalizing symptoms in adolescents, but little is known about the relation between RSA and SITBs. Initial research has shown a cross-sectional relation between lower basal RSA and greater RSA reactivity to a sad mood induction and self-injury. To date no prospective research on the relation between RSA and SITBs exists. The current study aims to investigate the prospective relation between RSA and SITBs in a community sample of 108 adolescents (Mage=12.82, SDage=0.82, 53.70% female). At the initial laboratory visit (T1), participants completed an unsolvable anagram stressor task, during which RSA (basal, reactivity, and recovery) was measured. SITBs were assessed at T1 and at the 6-month follow-up (T2). Results indicated basal RSA and RSA reactivity did not significantly predict engagement in SITBs between T1 and T2. Poorer RSA recovery from the stressor task at T1 did significantly predict engagement in SITBs between T1 and T2, over and above depressive symptoms and lifetime history of SITBs. This suggests that adolescents with poor ability to regulate physiologically following a stressor may turn to maladaptive emotion regulation strategies like SITBs.

Maternal cortisol during pregnancy is related to infant cardiac vagal control

Prenatal exposure to maternal psychological distress and glucocorticoids result in neurobiological adaptations within the fetus that increase risk for developing exaggerated emotional, behavioral, and stress responses to novelty and challenges in childhood. The current study investigated the influence of maternal depressed mood and cortisol during pregnancy on infant cardiac vagal control (CVC) to standardized laboratory challenge tasks. The sample comprised 194 women and their infants. Maternal reports of depressed mood and salivary cortisol were assessed at 14 and 32 weeks gestational age. Linear regression was used to examine associations between maternal measures during early and late pregnancy, and infant CVC indexed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) at rest and in response to laboratory tasks designed to elicit frustration when infants were 6 months of age. It was hypothesized that maternal depressed mood and cortisol would be associated with lower basal RSA and smaller decreases in RSA from baseline to challenge. A significant decrease in infant RSA from baseline to frustration tasks indicated that laboratory tasks elicited a reliable decrease in RSA from baseline to frustration among infants which is characterized by reduction in vagal efferent activity on the heart in response to challenge. Higher maternal cortisol, but not depressed mood, was associated with lower basal RSA and greater decrease in RSA from baseline to frustration. Associations between maternal cortisol and infant basal RSA were observed for both early and late pregnancy whereas the associations between prenatal cortisol and decrease in RSA from baseline to frustration were observed for early, but not late, pregnancy. Maternal cortisol during pregnancy was associated with infant CVC at 6-months of age. Such influences may have enduring impacts on the child and important implications for the development of physical and mental health outcomes.

Relationship Between Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia, Heart Period, and Caregiver-Reported Language and Cognitive Delays in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

The present study examines the relationship between autonomic activity and cognitive/language delays in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Baseline levels of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and heart period (HP) were assessed in 23 4-7-year old children diagnosed with ASD. The relationship between RSA, HP, and ASD behavioral symptoms was examined. Similar to prior studies on typically developing children, lower basal RSA was related to more caregiver-reported language and cognitive delays, and to the lack of language.

A pilot study on changes of cardiac vagal tone in individuals with low trait positive affect: The effect of positive psychotherapy

The association between changes of trait affect and changes of vagal tone was investigated in the present study. Basal physiological data were collected from 70 college students of high (n=33) and low trait positive affect (n=37) (HPA vs. LPA) groups selected by Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Then the final LPA participants (n=34) were randomly assigned to either a four month Positive Psychotherapy (PPT) group (n=16) or a control group (n=18), and their basal physiological and PANAS data were collected immediately after the treatment. The study results showed that compared to the LPA group, the HPA group had higher basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Compared to the control group, the PPT group had changes in trait affect and basal RSA, and increases in trait PA were associated with increases in basal RSA independently of decreases in trait NA. These findings suggest that basal vagal tone of individuals with low trait PA might be improved by increasing their trait PA.

Editorial: Identifying the cognitive and physiological underpinning of child psychiatric conditions

The February issue11 Articles in this issue (with italicised names below) can be found at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpp.2011.53.issue-2/issuetoc. represents several important approaches and domains found in contemporary psychology and psychiatry. First, several studies examined the links between child cognition and child outcomes. These studies are important because they attempt to move beyond broad diagnostic categories to a deeper understanding of their cognitive underpinnings. Shoemaker and colleagues examined the relationship between inhibition and working memory in preschool children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), disruptive behavioral disorder (DBD) and ADHD + DBD. The results of their study suggested that, as expected, children with ADHD showed significant inhibition deficits. Interestingly, children with DBD showed inhibition deficits, especially in situations with motivational incentives. Romens and Pollak examined the relationship between child maltreatment, depression, and attention bias. Results indicated that maltreated children displayed increased attention for depression-related stimuli, especially when provided with depression-related cues. The results of this study also suggested that children who ruminated demonstrated heightened and stable patterns of attention to depression-related cues. Rhodes and colleagues conducted a systematic analysis of memory in boys with ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). These researchers asserted that combined ADHD+ODD constitutes comorbidity between two distinct conditions, as opposed to different expressions of the same underlying etiology. As noted in their commentary, Jarrold and Hall raised several important issues concerning limitations of the Rhodes et al. study. These were, in turn, addressed by a response by Coghill and Rhodes. The reader is encouraged to consider Rhodes et al., Jarrold & Hall., and Coghill & Rhodes in their totality. Additionally, the current issue presents several papers addressing issues related to autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Kim and Lord examined the combined use of the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revise (ADI-R) and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS). Their study suggested that these measures tap additive dimensions of ASD, which leads to more stable and accurate diagnoses. Peters and colleagues examined autism-related features and behaviors in children with Angelman syndrome. This study is important because it examined this issue in children with chromosomal deletions. In particular, children with Class I deletions were more likely to show greater impairments in social affect and more repetitive behaviors than children with Class II deletions. These characteristics also appeared to persist longitudinally. Geluk and colleagues examined the longitudinal association between autistic symptoms and delinquent behavior in childhood arrestees, finding that autistic symptoms are more prevalent in these children compared to the unselected population. This study raises important questions concerning the interpretation of behavior as related to autism or related to delinquency in this population of children. Finally, a set of papers in this issue addressed the relationship between behavioral measures, physiological measures, and complex child outcomes. First, Wetter and El-Sheikh examined growth trajectories on internalizing symptoms in children, as predicted by maternal internalizing behavior and children’s basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), which is a measure of parasympathetic nervous system functioning. Results suggested that child physiological measures predict a portion of the substantial individual differences in children with familial risk for psychopathology. Kossowsky and colleagues suggested that separation from mother led to greater sympathetic nervous responsivity in children with separation anxiety disorder compared to controls. Murray and colleagues suggested that anxious mothers are no different from non-anxious mothers under typical conditions. However, mothers with anxiety disorders show difficulties when placed under stress. Tan and colleagues examined emotional reactivity and regulation in anxious versus nonanxious children using a cell phone-based study. What was most interesting about this study, aside from the ecological validity of the design, was the finding that, similar to the Murray et al. study, persons at risk for anxiety demonstrated difficulties in response to challenging events, but appeared to be no different from controls in other conditions. Finally, Kujawa and colleagues studied electrocortical reactivity to emotional faces in young children, and their relationship with parental depression. Children of mothers with a history of depression were more likely to show reduced physiological responses for faces with emotional content, suggesting that this response may be a biomarker for (as opposed to a consequence of) depression. Taken together, the studies contained in this issue demonstrate that child psychology and psychiatry are beginning to systematically integrate cognitive and physiological measures into theory. This is important, not only because of increased explanation of the substantial heterogeneity found in most diagnostic categories, but also because of the potential for developing cognitive or physiological biomarkers that can be employed to better identify, treat, or prevent childhood disorders.

Children’s Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms over Time: The Role of Individual Differences in Patterns of RSA Responding

We examined associations between basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in conjunction with RSA regulation with the hypothesis that their interaction would explain unique variability in children's prospective adjustment 2 years later. Participants were 176 children (98 girls; 78 boys) in middle childhood. RSA regulation was assessed through social and problem-solving challenges. Parents reported on children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Interactions between RSA baseline and regulation to the social stressor predicted children's later internalizing symptoms. Interactions between RSA baseline and responding to the problem-solving stressor predicted children's externalizing symptoms. The highest levels of internalizing symptoms were predicted for children with both lower basal RSA and higher RSA suppression. The highest levels of externalizing symptoms were predicted for children who demonstrated lower basal RSA in conjunction with RSA augmentation. Findings highlight the importance of the contemporaneous consideration of basal RSA and RSA regulation in the prediction of developmental psychopathology symptomology.

Disentangling emotion processes in borderline personality disorder: physiological and self-reported assessment of biological vulnerability, baseline intensity, and reactivity to emotionally evocative stimuli.

This study investigated M. Linehan's (1993) theory that individuals meeting criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD) have high biological vulnerability to emotion dysregulation, including high baseline emotional intensity and high reactivity to emotionally evocative stimuli. Twenty individuals with BPD, 20 age-matched individuals with generalized social anxiety disorder (SAD), and 20 age-matched normal controls (NCs) participated in 2 separate emotion induction conditions, a standardized condition, and a personally relevant condition. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), skin conductance response (SCR), and self-report measures were collected throughout the experiment. BPD participants displayed heightened biological vulnerability compared with NCs as indicated by reduced basal RSA. BPD participants also exhibited high baseline emotional intensity, characterized by heightened SCR and heightened self-reported negative emotions at baseline. However, the BPD group did not display heightened reactivity, as their physiological and self-reported changes from baseline to the emotion inductions tasks were not greater than the other 2 groups.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia and cognitive functioning in children

We examined associations between children's cognitive performance and both basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and RSA regulation to a reaction time task. Cognitive performance was examined in the lab via standardized tests of cognitive functioning (Woodcock-Johnson III) and a reaction time task. Results suggest that a higher level of basal RSA is predictive of better performance on WJ III scales examining fluid intelligence (e.g., working memory, cognitive efficiency). RSA reactivity was not significantly related to cognitive performance. Results build on and extend the literature by demonstrating that, in typically developing elementary school age children, RSA is related to well-standardized measures of cognitive performance even after controlling for potential confounds.

Applying the polyvagal theory to children's emotion regulation: Social context, socialization, and adjustment

Effective emotion regulation is essential for children's positive development. Polyvagal theory provides a framework for understanding how parasympathetic regulation of cardiac activity contributes to children's adaptive versus maladaptive functioning. Maintenance of cardiac respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) under social challenge should support emotion regulation and behavioral adjustment. Children's effective parasympathetic regulation and behavioral adjustment should be supported by appropriate parental socialization. These proposals were evaluated in a short-term longitudinal study of 94 preschool-aged children. Parenting and basal RSA were measured at home, then 6–10 months later behavioral adjustment and RSA in lab baseline and socially challenging contexts were measured. Children with relatively higher RSA in social challenge than at baseline (ΔRSA) had fewer internalizing problems (IP) and externalizing problems (EP), and better behavioral self-regulation (SR). Mothers who used more negative control had children with lower ΔRSA, more IP and EP, and less SR. Structural equation modeling showed that vagal regulation mediated associations between maternal negative control and children's adjustment; maternal negative control did not predict EP or SR after accounting for ΔRSA. Associations were consistent across boys and girls, with one exception: Higher ΔRSA was significantly associated with fewer EP in boys only. These findings suggest that the practical significance of physiological regulation might be best revealed in ecologically valid procedures, and that children's physiological mechanisms of emotion regulation are shaped by their experiences of parental socialization.

Preliminary evidence of parasympathetic influence on basal heart rate in posttraumatic stress disorder

Objective Evidence of elevated basal heart rate (HR) in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been interpreted in terms of elevated sympathetic cardiac activity, as have possible increased cardiovascular disease risks and outcomes associated with elevated HR. Yet it is well-established that the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system not only influences HR independently of the sympathetic branch, but makes a greater contribution to HR, including resting HR. Additionally, abnormally low tonic parasympathetic activity on the heart has been implicated in cardiovascular disease and hypertension. This study addressed a potential parasympathetic contribution to elevated basal HR in PTSD. Methods We used a descriptive and subgroup differences approach to investigate relationships between parasympathetic activity and basal HR in 59 adults (50 females) with PTSD, all of whom were participants in a treatment outcome study and assessed prior to exposure to trauma-related script-driven imagery. Consistent with the well-known relationship between parasympathetic activity and HR, we hypothesized that basal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a measure of parasympathetic cardiac activity, would be negatively correlated with basal HR. More important, we predicted that pathologically elevated HRs previously associated with PTSD would only characterize a low-RSA subgroup. Potential confounds of age, respiration rate, and aerobic fitness were addressed. Results As predicted, mean HR was 80.5 bpm in the low-RSA tercile group, similar to mean HRs of PTSD groups in prior research and significantly higher than 69 and 65 bpm in the middle- and high-RSA groups, respectively, which are typical of non-PTSD controls. Conclusion These findings suggest that a substantial proportion of those with PTSD may not have elevated basal HRs. Furthermore, among those who do exhibit elevated HR, there may be a parasympathetic contribution that is independent of any sympathetic one. Only measuring both branches at once, ideally with autonomic blockades, can definitively address these issues.