Decrease In Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Research Articles

Autonomic nervous system function before and after trauma-focused psychotherapy in youth with (partial) posttraumatic stress disorder

While trauma-focused psychotherapies have been shown effective in youth with PTSD, the relationship between treatment response and alterations in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) associated with PTSD, remains incompletely understood. During neutral and personalized trauma script imagery heart rate (HR), pre-ejection period (PEP) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were recorded in youth aged 8–18 with PTSD or partial PTSD (n = 76) and trauma-exposed controls (TEC) (n = 27) to determine ANS activity and stress reactivity. Within the patient group, 77.6% met the full DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for PTSD, the remaining 22.4% met the criteria for partial PTSD. Youth with (partial) PTSD were subsequently treated with eight sessions of either trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. PTSD severity was assessed using the Clinician-Administered PTSD scale for Children and Adolescents to divide patients into responders and non-responders. Youth with (partial) PTSD relative to TEC had higher overall HR during both neutral and trauma imagery (p = .05). Youth with (partial) PTSD showed RSA decrease during trauma imagery relative to neutral imagery, the reverse of TEC (p = .01). Relative to non-responders, responders demonstrated a significant baseline to posttreatment increase of RSA response to stress only when employing a ≥ 50% response criterion (p = .05) and not with the primary ≥ 30% criterion (p = .12). Our results suggest overall higher HR and sympathetic nervous system activity as well as vagal withdrawal in response to stress in youth with (partial) PTSD and only provide partial support for normalization of the latter with successful trauma-focused psychotherapy.

"Katerina gets mad": Infants' physiological and behavioral responses to co-viewing educational, self-regulatory media.

A growing body of research has focused on the physiological impact of media on older children and adolescents. Less research has been focused on the potential physiological impact of media on infants and younger children, especially media designed to be age appropriate and educational in content. In this study, we examined respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in infants (N=269, Mage =17.13months) while they co-viewed an educational video clip that modeled emotion regulation and contrasted their physiological response to an unoccupied baseline and a frustration paradigm (arm-restraint). Given parent reports showing the calming effect of educational media viewing in young children, we anticipated that a similar pattern of calming would be observed physiologically in infants. Results showed that relative to baseline, most infants demonstrated an increase in RSA while co-viewing, suggesting greater parasympathetic (regulatory) activation consistent with behavioral calming. However, infants who demonstrated vagal withdrawal during co-viewing (decrease in RSA) were more likely to have parents who used a tablet to help infants go to sleep at night. Vagal withdrawal was also associated with increased levels of negative affect observed during the co-viewing task. Findings are discussed in relation to the contextual effect of co-viewing age-appropriate, educational media on children's physiological responses.

Follow the leader: Maternal transmission of physiological regulatory support to distressed infants in real-time.

Decades of evidence show that mothers provide emotional scaffolding to regulate their infants during moments of distress and that postpartum depression (PPD) can significantly disrupt this process. However, the mechanisms underlying mother-to-infant transmission of regulatory support in real-time are unclear. Examining these mechanisms is critical to understanding how mothers actively shape infant self-regulatory capacity, as well as how psychiatric risk may be transmitted from mother to child. In 32 healthy mother-infant dyads and 26 dyads affected by PPD (Mage infants = 5.4 months, 40% male), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was acquired simultaneously within dyads on a second-by-second scale during the reunion phase of the still-face task. We examined if the influence of maternal RSA on subsequent infant RSA (measured at the next second) strengthened across the reunion phase. Effects were examined at baseline, then 9 weeks later at a follow-up study visit. Between visits, mothers affected by PPD received 9 weeks of group cognitive behavioral therapy. Among healthy dyads, maternal RSA influenced subsequent decreases in infant RSA, an effect that strengthened across the reunion at both baseline and follow-up visits. In the PPD dyads, this same pattern was also observed, but only at the follow-up visit. Therefore, while mother-to-infant RSA influence patterns differed between healthy and PPD dyads at baseline, the same pattern was observed in both groups at follow-up. This study provides novel evidence for a mechanism that may explain how mothers actively transmit regulatory support to their distressed infants in real-time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The development of frustration regulation over early childhood: Links between attention diversion and parasympathetic activity.

Diverting attention away from negative emotional stimuli has been associated with calmer physiological states in the moment, but little is known about the potential long-term effects of this emotion regulation strategy on physiology. Similarly, how physiological states, in turn, may contribute to the development of regulatory behaviors has seldom been examined. The current study investigated the concurrent and prospective associations between children's parasympathetic activity and attention diversion during a frustrating experience over 2.5 years. At 3.5 (n = 83) and 6 years (n = 58), children participated in age-appropriate frustration inductions. Multiphase latent growth curve models were used to model dynamic changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity to and recovery from frustration. At 6 years, attention diversion was associated with concurrent increases in RSA (increased parasympathetic influence). However, longitudinal path models showed the opposite association. Attention diversion at 3.5 years predicted heightened autonomic arousal at 6 years in the form of greater decreases in RSA throughout the reactivity phase. Additionally, RSA recovery at 3.5 years predicted less use of attention diversion at 6 years. These findings suggest a developmental process by which earlier emotion regulation behaviors shape later physiological responses, with different short- versus long-term correlates of attention diversion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

While a shy child waits: Autonomic and affective responses during the anticipation and delivery of a speech.

Shyness is a temperament characterized by wariness to social novelty and perceived social evaluation. However, we know relatively little about temperamentally shy children's psychophysiological and affective responses during different phases of social stressors. We examined whether children's temperamental shyness was related to distinct patterns of autonomic and affective responses across three conditions: baseline, speech anticipation, and speech delivery. Participants included 152 children (Mage = 7.82 years, SD = 0.44) who had their autonomic nervous system activity [respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and heart rate (HR)] and subjective nervousness assessed across each experimental condition. Children's temperamental shyness was assessed according to parent- and child-report. Using a latent difference score framework to model dynamic changes across task phases, we found that higher levels of parent-reported shyness was related to decreases in RSA from baseline to speech anticipation followed by increases in RSA from speech anticipation to delivery. Further, higher levels of parent-reported shyness were related to increases in HR from baseline to speech anticipation, and higher levels of child-reported shyness was related to increases in subjective nervousness from baseline to speech anticipation. These findings illustrate that children with higher levels of temperamental shyness may experience autonomic and emotion dysregulation particularly during the anticipation of social stressors, which may reflect their tendency to react to perceived impending social threat on both physiological and affective levels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 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.

Parasympathetic response to challenge in infancy moderates the effects of sociodemographic risk on academic achievement at school entry.

Exposure to higher levels of sociodemographic risk is associated with lower levels of academic achievement among young children. However, there is variability in the strength of this association, which may be traced to individual differences in physiological processes underlying self-regulation. In the current study, we examined whether the response of the parasympathetic nervous system to challenge, indexed by change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), moderated the association between risk and school readiness at 5 years of age in a diverse sample of young children. We found that parasympathetic response to the Still-Face Paradigm moderated the effects of risk on a measure of school readiness, such that there was no association between risk and school readiness among children who exhibited RSA decreases during challenge at 6 months of age, a purported index of self-regulation at this age. For those infants who did not exhibit RSA withdrawal during this challenge, exposure to early cumulative risk was associated with lower scores on achievement assessment. These results speak to the possibility that certain patterns of parasympathetic response can serve as a protective factor for young children growing up in disadvantaged environments.

Association Between Dynamic Parasympathetic Reactivity to Frustration and Children's Social Success with Peers in Kindergarten.

The inability to regulate affective arousal in the context of frustration may jeopardize children's ability to form successful friendships, especially as new peer groups are formed during the transition to kindergarten. While substantial research has utilized teacher reports of children's socioemotional behavior, there is less empirical evidence on the peer perspective. The present study utilized data from n = 235 kindergarteners (54% high in disruptive behavior) recruited for a multicomponent intervention. We examined whether physiological reactivity to frustration was associated with children's social success. Peer nominations of liking or disliking to play with the child were used to compute a social preference score, where negative values reflect greater rejection than acceptance. Multilevel growth modeling was employed to capture changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity across a manipulated inhibitory control task administered in 3 blocks, with differing algorithms embedded to induce affect: points were earned in the 1stand 3rdblocks (reward) and lost during the 2ndblock (frustration). Groups did not differ in RSA reactivity during the 1stblock, but children who experience greater peer rejection showed significant decreases in RSA (increases in arousal) across frustration. This increased arousal persisted across the 3rdblock despite the reinstatement of reward, indicating a greater degree of reactivity and a lack of recovery relative to peer-accepted children. Teacher screenings of disruptive behavior only partially aligned with peer ratings of acceptance, highlighting the benefits of leveraging peer report to capture regulatory functioning and identify children for intervention recruitment.

Vigilant or avoidant? Children's temperamental shyness, patterns of gaze, and physiology during social threat.

Temperamental shyness is characterized by fear, wariness, and the perception of threat in response to social novelty. Previous work has been inconsistent regarding attentional patterns to social threat among shy children, with evidence for both avoidance and vigilance. We examined relations between children's shyness and gaze aversion during the approach of a stranger (i.e., a context of social novelty), and tested whether these patterns of gaze moderated relations between shyness and autonomic reactivity and recovery. Participants included 152 typically-developing children (Mage =7.82 years, SD=0.44 years) who had their respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) recorded during baseline, social novelty, and recovery. Children's shyness correlated with increases in self-reported nervousness from baseline to social novelty, providing support for perceived threat. Results revealed that children's proportion of gaze aversion from social novelty was related to shyness in a U-shape pattern such that both low levels of gaze aversion (i.e., attentional vigilance) and high levels of gaze aversion (i.e., attentional avoidance) were related to higher levels of shyness. Further, we found that children's shyness was directly related to decreases in RSA from baseline to social novelty, whereas quadratic gaze to social novelty moderated the relation between shyness and RSA recovery. Specifically, shyness was related to greater RSA recovery among children who exhibited attentional vigilance during the novel social interaction. Our findings provide support for both avoidance of, and vigilance to, social threat among different shy children, and these gaze strategies may be differentially related to physiological regulation during novel social encounters.

A Systematic Review of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia in Romantic Relationships.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an index of the parasympathetic nervous system, has recently gained attention as a physiological component of regulatory processes, social connectedness, and health. Within the context of romantic relationships, studies have operationalized and conceptualized RSA in disparate ways, obscuring a clear pattern of findings. This systematic review synthesizes the rapidly developing literature and clarifies the role of RSA in romantic relationships. We evaluate support for three conceptual hypotheses: (1) resting baseline RSA is associated with better quality relationships; (2) phasic RSA is reflective of changes in threat and connection during couple interactions; and (3) physiological linkage in RSA between romantic partners relates to positive or negative relationship functioning depending on the nature of the linkage (e.g., in-phase vs. antiphase). We identified 26 empirical studies that tested associations between RSA and an index of romantic relationships (i.e., relationship satisfaction). Our findings show that higher RSA is not uniformly "good" for relationships. Higher resting baseline RSA was contemporaneously associated with better quality relationships, yet higher baseline RSA was also unexpectedly associated with relationship violence. Short-term decreases in RSA were found during relationship conflict, though the opposite-phasic increases in RSA during positive romantic partner interactions-was not found due to mixed empirical support. As expected, evidence for RSA linkage was found, though the connection between linkage and relationship functioning depends on the context in which it was measured. We discuss methodological limitations and directions for future research.

Self‐regulated behavior and parent‐child co‐regulation are associated with young children's physiological response to receiving critical adult feedback

AbstractUsing piecewise growth curve trajectory modeling, we investigated kindergartners' physiological responses to receiving critical feedback from an adult during a laboratory drawing task. Further, we tested how children's independent self‐regulated behavior, as well as the quality of parent‐child co‐regulation, related to physiological reactivity to and recovery from this challenge. We used respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) to measure parasympathetic nervous system activity. Participants were 96 children (Mage = 5.6 years, 56% female) and their parents. We used observer ratings to capture children's self‐regulated behavior during the laboratory visit and state‐space grid methodology (an innovative, moment‐to‐moment behavioral coding method) to index observed parent‐child positive co‐regulation during four interaction tasks. First, the quality of dyadic parent‐child co‐regulation was associated significantly with children's RSA reactivity during the dyadic experience of receiving critical feedback from an adult. Specifically, children with higher levels of positive parent‐child co‐regulation exhibited decreases in RSA while receiving critical feedback, which may indicate active engagement or coping with the challenging situation. Second, children's self‐regulated behavior was associated significantly with RSA recovery during a period immediately after the task ended, when children were seated alone. Children with lower levels of observed self‐regulated behavior showed sudden RSA decrease after the critical feedback ceased, suggesting that this post‐task period was physiologically challenging for them.

Emotional Reactivity and Regulation in Preschool-Age Children Who Do and Do Not Stutter: Evidence From Autonomic Nervous System Measures.

Purpose: This experimental cross-sectional research study examined the emotional reactivity and emotion regulation in preschool-age children who do (CWS) and do not stutter (CWNS) by assessing their psychophysiological response during rest and while viewing pictures from the International Affective Picture System (Lang et al., 2008).Method: Participants were 18 CWS (16 boys and two girls; mean age 4 years, 5 months) and 18 age- and gender-matched CWNS. Participants' psychophysiological responses were measured during two baselines and two picture viewing conditions. Skin conductance level (SCL) and heart rate were measured to assess emotional reactivity. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was measured to assess emotional regulation. Participants' shyness and executive function were assessed via parent report and considered for their effects on participants' psychophysiological responses.Results: First, CWNS and CWS did not differ in their initial baseline SCL, heart rate, or RSA, but all participants had higher SCL and lower RSA in the second baseline, subsequent to the first challenge condition, compared to the first baseline. Second, during the challenge conditions, CWS did not differ from CWNS in their SCL, but showed a significantly higher heart rate than CWNS. Third, CWS exhibited a significantly lower RSA during the challenge conditions compared to CWNS. Lastly, the temperamental quality of shyness was associated with preschool-age children's SCL, such that participants who were rated higher in shyness had a higher SCL during the challenge conditions. Participants' executive function had a marginally significant effect on the RSA, such that the participants who had higher executive function composite scores exhibited lower RSA during the challenge conditions.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that CWS and CWNS did not differ in their emotional reactivity and emotional regulation abilities at rest. During challenge conditions, however, CWS tended to be more emotionally reactive, as indicated by a higher heart rate, and also employed more emotional regulation, indexed by a greater decrease in RSA, compared to CWNS. Preschool-age children's behavior is largely dominated by reactivity, but there is the emergence of regulation, which can help children adjust to various contextual demands. For CWS who are more emotionally reactive, regulatory skills may be particularly critical to their prognosis and treatment.

The Development of Generosity From 4 to 6 Years: Examining Stability and the Biopsychosocial Contributions of Children's Vagal Flexibility and Mothers' Compassion.

Individual differences in children’s prosocial behaviors, including their willingness to give up something of value for the benefit of others, are rooted in physiological and environmental processes. In a sample of 4-year-old children, we previously found evidence that flexible changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were linked to donation behavior, and that these physiological patterns may support greater sensitivity to the positive effects of compassionate parenting on donation behavior. The current study focused on a follow-up assessment of these children at age 6. First, we examined the stability of individual differences in donation behavior and related parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity from age 4 to 6. Second, we examined associations between donation behavior and RSA at 6 years. Third, we examined whether the association between children’s RSA and donation behavior at age 6 varied depending on mothers’ compassionate love. We found low to modest stability in donation behavior and RSA reactivity from age 4 to 6. These findings provide preliminary evidence that stable individual differences in altruism, as reflected by generosity, and in some aspects of parasympathetic functioning during opportunities to be prosocial, emerge in childhood. In addition, we found that some of the same associations between donation behavior, RSA, and compassionate love that we previously observed in children at 4 years of age continued to be evident 2 years later at age 6. Greater decreases in RSA when given the opportunity to donate were associated with children donating more of their own resources which, in turn, were associated with greater RSA recovery after the task. Lastly, mothers’ compassionate love was positively associated with donation behavior in children who demonstrated stronger decreases in RSA during the task; compassionate parenting and RSA reactivity may serve as external and internal supports for prosociality that build on each other. Taken together, these findings contribute to the perspectives that individual differences in altruistic behaviors are intrinsically linked to healthy vagal flexibility, and that biopsychosocial approaches provide a useful framework for examining and understanding the environmental and physiological processes underlying these individual differences.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia during a mental attention task: the role of breathing-specific heart rate

It is known that a mental attention task (MAT) can modify the magnitude of the increase in instantaneous heart rate (HR) with inspiration, or Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA). Here, we asked whether the RSA changes were mediated by the changes in HR, breathing frequency (f) or HR/f (‘breathing specific heart rate’). This latter reflects the degree of coupling between pulmonary blood and air flows, the optimization of which may be the function of RSA. RSA (computed as the difference between peak and trough instantaneous HR of each breath, in percent of mean HR) was measured breath-by-breath in 119 young men and women (19.6 ± 0.1 year old) during spontaneous breathing and during a MAT, which consisted in finger tapping at acoustic cues delivered in various patterns. During MAT, breathing became more rapid (+2.2 breaths/min, P < 0.001) and shallow (78% of rest, P < 0.001) and HR decreased slightly (-1 beats/min, P < 0.05). RSA dropped from 13.4 ± 0.7 to 11.6 ± 0.7% (P < 0.0001), because of the drop in the inspiratory peak of instantaneous HR, and so did HR/f, from 5.8 ± 0.2 to 4.9 ± 0.2 beats/breath (P < 0.0001).The results were very similar between genders. The magnitude of the changes in HR/f correlated linearly with those of RSA, so that those subjects who decreased HR/f the most also had the largest decrease in RSA and the few who increased HR/f during MAT also increased RSA. We conclude that this type of mental task changed RSA by a magnitude that depended on its effect on HR/f. The results support the concept that RSA is a central cardio-respiratory mechanism to ameliorate the matching between pulmonary blood and air flows, whether the ventilatory drive originates spontaneously or is under cortical influences.

Intergenerational transmission of emotion dysregulation: Part II. Developmental origins of newborn neurobehavior.

We investigated whether neurobehavioral markers of risk for emotion dysregulation were evident among newborns, as well as whether the identified markers were associated with prenatal exposure to maternal emotion dysregulation. Pregnant women (N = 162) reported on their emotion dysregulation prior to a laboratory assessment. The women were then invited to the laboratory to assess baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and RSA in response to an infant cry. Newborns were assessed after birth via the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale. We identified two newborn neurobehavioral factors-arousal and attention-via exploratory factor analysis. Low arousal was characterized by less irritability, excitability, and motor agitation, while low attention was related to a lower threshold for auditory and visual stimulation, less sustained attention, and poorer visual tracking abilities. Pregnant women who reported higher levels of emotion dysregulation had newborns with low arousal levels and less attention. Larger decreases in maternal RSA in response to cry were also related to lower newborn arousal. We provide the first evidence that a woman's emotion dysregulation while pregnant is associated with risks for dysregulation in her newborn. Implications for intergenerational transmission of emotion dysregulation are discussed.

Autonomic correlates of lifetime suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adolescents with a history of depression.

Suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) have been associated with emotion dysregulation and atypical responses to affective and stressful stimuli. To investigate the psychophysiology involved, we measured changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP; indexing parasympathetic and sympathetic functioning, respectively) in response to stressful- and sadness-eliciting laboratory probes. Our sample included adolescents with a history of depression and STBs (n=177), adolescents with a history of depression but no history of STBs (n=47), and healthy controls (n=175). The outcome of interest was the most severe form of clinician-rated STBs across the subject's lifetime. In partial support of our hypotheses, during the stressful task, adolescents with a history of depression and STBs did not evidence the RSA decrease that was exhibited by controls and displayed greater PEP shortening compared to ever-depressed adolescents with no lifetime STBs. No group differences were found in either RSA or PEP reactivity to the sadness-eliciting stimulus. As expected, severity of STBs was positively correlated with the extent of PEP shortening during the stressful task. The results suggest that adolescents with a history of depression and STBs experience blunted parasympathetic responses to stress along with compensatory efforts. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of STBs among youths and underscore that future studies should examine physiological risk factors for these psychopathological outcomes.

Otitis media and respiratory sinus arrhythmia across infancy and early childhood: Polyvagal processes?

Otitis media (OM)-or middle-ear inflammation-is the most widely diagnosed childhood illness, with evidence implicating OM in a range of distal problems (e.g., language delays, attention problems). Polyvagal theory (Porges, 1995, 2007) posits that there also are likely important connections between middle-ear functioning and children's developing parasympathetic nervous systems (PNS). Using prospective longitudinal data from the Family Life Project (n = 748), we tested within- and between-person relations between indicators of OM (middle-ear spectral gradient angle; SGA) and children's trajectories of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)-a marker of parasympathetic control of the heart-between the ages of 7 and 35 months. The results suggested that, irrespective of age, children with indications of chronic OM (low cumulative SGA) tended to show atypical RSA reactivity to moderate cognitive challenge, compared with the reactivity patterns of their low-OM-risk peers (mid-to-high cumulative SGA). Specifically, on average, low-OM-risk children showed RSA decreases in the context of challenge in infancy, with the magnitude of the decline weakening and eventually changing direction (i.e., RSA increase) by 35 months. In contrast, those with indicators of chronic OM evinced blunted RSA responses to challenge, irrespective of age. Within-person, temporal bouts of OM-risk were not predictive of within-person changes in RSA reactivity across early childhood. (PsycINFO Database Record

An intervention that increases parental sensitivity in families referred to Child Protective Services also changes toddlers' parasympathetic regulation.

Experiencing maltreatment in early childhood predicts poor parasympathetic regulation, characterized by low baseline parasympathetic activity and strong withdrawal of parasympathetic influence in response to tasks. The Promoting First Relationships® (PFR) program improves parental sensitivity toward young children in families identified as maltreating. Using a subsample from a randomized control trial, we examined whether parental participation in PFR had lasting effects on toddlers' parasympathetic regulation, as measured by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), relative to a resource and referral control condition. In addition, we examined whether parental sensitive and responsive behavior mediated or moderated associations between parent treatment group and children's RSA. More than 6 months after completing treatment, 29 families in the PFR condition and 30 families in the control condition were visited at home, and toddlers' RSA was assessed at baseline and during five moderately challenging tasks. Groups did not differ in baseline RSA, but differed in RSA reactivity to the tasks. Across tasks, toddlers of parents in the control condition manifested significantly larger RSA decreases than toddlers of parents in the PFR condition. Parental behavior showed divergent associations with RSA change for toddlers of parents in the PFR versus control condition, with PFR treatment predicting RSA change ranging from small decreases to increases in toddlers of parents who showed the most sensitive, responsive behavior in the 6 months following treatment. This preliminary study showed that the same intervention that improved parenting also improved toddlers' parasympathetic regulation in response to everyday activities, warranting further experimental investigation.

Children's and mothers' cardiovascular reactivity to a standardized laboratory stressor: Unique relations with maternal anxiety and overcontrol.

Research documents bidirectional associations between parental overcontrol (OC) and children's anxiety; OC may place children at risk for anxiety and also may occur in response to children's requests for help. However, to date no studies have examined children's or parents' in-the-moment emotional responses to OC. Using a community sample of mothers and school-age children, we examine the individual and interactive influences of maternal OC, maternal anxiety, children's help-seeking, and children's anxiety in predicting physiological reactivity in response to a stressor faced by children and observed by mothers, predicting that for children of higher anxiety mothers, higher OC will be associated with increases in reactivity (decreases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]), whereas for higher anxiety mothers themselves, engaging in OC will be associated with reductions in physiological reactivity (decreases in heart rate). Multilevel modeling suggested that for children of higher anxiety mothers, greater peak OC is associated with greater reductions in RSA (increases in reactivity) after the onset of OC. In contrast, for higher anxiety mothers themselves, greater peak OC was linked with attenuations in heart rate. Effects held when controlling for children's anxiety and help-seeking, and no pattern of effects was observed with analyses in which children's help-seeking was the predictor or children's anxiety was the moderator, suggesting that in this case, physiological reactivity is uniquely associated with the interaction between maternal OC and anxiety. Among mothers with higher anxiety, OC may serve a regulatory function, reducing physiological reactivity, while exacerbating children's reactivity. (PsycINFO Database Record

Physiological Emotion Regulation in Children with ADHD with and without Comorbid Internalizing Disorders: a Preliminary Study

Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) experience deficits in emotion regulation that can be measured physiologically under environmental stress conditions by examining respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a marker of parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) withdrawal. The current pilot study examined the impact of comorbid internalizing disorders and comorbid Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) on emotion regulation in children with ADHD by measuring RSA as an indicator of dysregulated emotional reactivity. Twenty-four 7–10 year old children with ADHD participated in the current study. Children completed a 5-min resting attending baseline while electrocardiogram data (ECG) were recorded to examine baseline RSA. Children then completed a stress inducing, blocked goal, Card Sorting Task to measure RSA reactivity to stress. Results revealed a significant effect of internalizing disorder status on RSA difference score, F (1, 18) = 5.83, p = .03, η2 = .25. Children in the comorbid internalizing disorder group had a significantly greater decrease in RSA from the baseline time period to the card sorting task. There was no significant effect of ODD diagnostic status on RSA difference score, p > .05. The results of this preliminary study suggest that among children with ADHD, the presence of a comorbid internalizing disorder predicts greater withdrawal of the PNS. These findings represent an important step in understanding autonomic functioning of children with ADHD and comorbid disorders.