Greater Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Withdrawal Research Articles

Examining the impact of online rejection among emerging adults with borderline personality pathology: Development of a novel online group chat social rejection paradigm.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by emotional reactivity and interpersonal sensitivity, including greater emotional and cognitive reactivity to social rejection than controls. However, existing social rejection paradigms are not relevant to the particular social contexts that are increasingly relevant for adolescents and young adults (i.e., social media and online settings). This study examined emotional, parasympathetic, and cognitive responses to a novel online group chat social interaction task among emerging adults (18-24 years old) with a range of BPD pathology. Consistent with hypotheses, results revealed greater hostility and upset feelings, worse mood, greater threat to social needs, and greater respiratory sinus arrhythmia withdrawal in response to this task among participants in the rejection versus inclusion condition. Less support was found for the hypothesized relation of BPD pathology to greater reactivity to online social rejection. Specifically, although results revealed positive relations of BPD pathology with both negative mood in general and hostility in particular, in response to the task among participants in the rejection (but not inclusion) condition, the effect sizes associated with these findings were small, and the other hypothesized interactions of BPD pathology and group chat task condition were not significant. Conversely, results revealed associations of BPD pathology with greater threat to social needs and lower positive mood in response to the group chat task, regardless of condition. Results provide preliminary support for the utility of this novel online group chat rejection task for eliciting negative emotional, parasympathetic, and cognitive reactions in emerging adults with a range of BPD pathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

RSA reactivity to parent-child conflict as a predictor of dysregulated emotion and behavior in daily life.

Individual variability in tonic (resting) and phasic (reactivity) respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) may underlie risk for dysregulated emotion and behavior, two transdiagnostic indicators that permeate most psychological disorders in youth. The interaction between tonic and phasic RSA may specify unique physiological profiles during the transition to adolescence. The current study utilized clinically referred youth (Mage = 12.03; s.d. = 0.92) to examine baseline RSA, RSA reactivity, and their interaction as predictors of dysregulated emotion and behavior in daily life. Participants were 162 youth (47% female; 60% minority) in psychiatric treatment for any mood or behavior problem. RSA was assessed during three, 2-minute baselines and an 8-minute parent-child conflict discussion task. Dysregulated emotion and behavior were assessed during a 4-day ecological momentary assessment protocol that included 10 time-based prompts over a long weekend. Greater RSA withdrawal to the conflict was associated with dysregulated basic emotion (sadness, anger, nervousness, stress) in daily life. Two distinct interactions also emerged, such that baseline RSA was related to dysregulated complex emotion (shame, guilt, loneliness, emptiness) and dysregulated behavior as a function of RSA reactivity to conflict. Lower baseline RSA and greater RSA withdrawal were associated with dysregulated complex emotion, while higher baseline RSA and greater RSA withdrawal were associated with dysregulated behavior. Findings point to physiological profiles that increase the risk of dysregulated emotion and behavior during the transition to adolescence. Excessive RSA withdrawal uniquely, and in combination with baseline RSA, increased risk for dysregulation in daily life, underscoring the role of autonomic stress responding as a risk factor for psychopathology.

Linking preschoolers' parasympathetic activity to maternal early adversity and child behavior: An intergenerational perspective.

Increasing evidence suggests intergenerational effects of maternal early adversity on offspring self-regulation. Prior work has demonstrated associations between maternal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a parasympathetic biomarker associated with emotional and behavioral self-regulation. The present study examined these associations and additional potential pathways including children's violence exposure and maternal psychopathology among 123 biological mother-child dyads. Families were low-income and oversampled for violence exposure; children were 3-5years old. RSA was examined during dyadic interaction using latent growth curve modeling (LGCM). On average, females exhibited greater RSA reactivity. Greater RSA withdrawal across the interaction was associated with greater child negative affect during the interaction, linking RSA reactivity to concurrent child behavior. Consistent with previous findings among infants, high maternal ACEs were associated with lower child RSA at task initiation but not with RSA reactivity across the interaction. Findings suggest that the association between high maternal ACEs and a lower set point for offspring RSA persists into the early childhood period, beyond the influence of maternal psychopathology and children's own violence exposure. These data provide further evidence for the biological embedding of maternal early adversity across generations as well as for the relevance of RSA to child behavioral regulation.

The Good Tastes Study: Associations Between Infants’ Physiological Regulation and Responses to Bitter Green Vegetables (P11-083-19)

ObjectivesInfants are predisposed to reject bitter tastes in order to prevent the ingestion of toxic substances. Thus, some infants may respond to bitter flavors with a physiological response consistent with how they respond to environmental threat, with implications for their behavior. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is an index of parasympathetic regulation of the heart, which decreases in response to challenging or threatening stimuli (i.e., RSA withdrawal), allowing the individual to engage in a fight or flight response (Porges, 2007). Here, we examined whether RSA withdrawal (RSAW) was associated with infants’ behavioral reactions to bitter green vegetable purées. MethodsInfants/toddlers (n = 106; 57 males) tasted a familiar food (rice cereal) and a novel food (kale purees) offered by their caregivers (94% mothers) during a laboratory visit. Trained coders watched video recordings to tally infants’ rejections (e.g., head turns, spoon swatting) and rate their degree of acceptance (4-point scale; 0 = refusal to 3 = anticipation). Three disposable electrodes were placed on the infants’ chest areas prior to feeding to measure heart rate (R-waves). Data were edited and used to calculate RSA values in 15-s epochs using CardioBatch Plus (Brain-Body Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill). RSAW scores were calculated by subtracting average RSA during the kale tasting from average RSA during the familiar food baseline task; higher scores indicated greater RSAW. Multiple regression models were used to examine associations between RSAW and infants’ reactions to the kale (rejections, acceptance) after controlling for child age (months) and the amount of time since they last ate (minutes). ResultsRegression models predicting novel food rejection (F(3,82) = 8.78, R2 = .49) and acceptance (F(3,83) = 9.81, R2 = .51) were significant. After controlling for covariates, greater RSAW was associated with more rejection behaviors (β = .21, P = .03) and less acceptance (β = -.24, P = .01). ConclusionsInfants who demonstrated greater RSAW during the kale feeding also responded to the kale with a behavioral “fight” response—greater rejection of the food. This study provides preliminary evidence that when infants reject bitter green vegetables, their physiological responses reflect a reaction to environmental threat. Funding SourcesThe Sugar Association.

Adolescents' brain-autonomic coupling during emotion processing

Autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity is a core component of emotion processing. The limbic system and medial prefrontal cortex play important roles in the regulation of ANS activity. However, the integration of brain activity and ANS activity has yet to be investigated in adolescents despite independent evidence of adolescents' heightened neural and physiological sensitivity to emotional stimuli. The present study examined the relations of ANS activity in the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) with brain activity during emotional face processing in adolescents. 135 adolescents (65 female; M = 17.15 yr, SD = 0.42) completed an emotional faces task during an fMRI scan while electrocardiography and skin conductance were recorded simultaneously. Using linear mixed-effect modelling, we tested the effect of change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a measure of PNS activity, and number of skin conductance responses (SCRs), a measure of SNS activity, on neural activity while adolescents viewed emotional faces. Greater RSA withdrawal, indicating decreased PNS activity, was associated with increased activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). More SCRs, indicating greater SNS activity, were associated with decreased activation in several regions including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and increased activation in the left hippocampus. Left hippocampus-SCR coupling and vmPFC-RSA coupling predicted baseline SCR and RSA respectively. These findings implicate the hippocampus for potentiating SNS activity, document that regulation of SNS and PNS activity are coordinated with distinct regions of the medial prefrontal cortex, and suggest potential developmental differences in vmPFC regulation of PNS activity between adolescents and adults.

Cumulative risk exposure moderates the association between parasympathetic reactivity and inhibitory control in preschool-age children.

A child's cumulative risk for early exposure to stress has been linked to alterations of self-regulation outcomes, including neurobiological correlates of inhibitory control (IC). We examined whether children's ability to engage the parasympathetic nervous system impacts how risk affects IC. Children ages 3-5 years completed two laboratory measures of IC while respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was measured, indexing parasympathetic activity. Children with greater risk demonstrated lower IC; risk also moderated associations between RSA reactivity and IC. For children with less risk, greater RSA withdrawal during IC tasks was associated with better IC. In contrast, greater risk was associated with poor IC, regardless of RSA withdrawal. Effects of risk were more pronounced for cumulative than individual measures. Results suggest that cumulative risk exposure disrupts connectivity between physiological and behavioral components of self-regulation in early childhood. Parasympathetic withdrawal to cognitive tasks may be less relevant for performance in developmental samples experiencing greater life stress.

Links between autonomic activity and implicit learning

The somatic marker hypothesis posits that autonomic activity occurring in response to specific stimuli aids in implicit learning, the learning of information without explicit awareness of what has been learned. This study investigated whether respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a measure of autonomic nervous system activity, predicted changes in implicit learning. The interaction of resting RSA and RSA reactivity (change in RSA during the implicit learning task) was associated with changes in implicit learning, with those who had higher resting RSA and greater RSA withdrawal during the task performing better. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the autonomic processes that may underlie implicit learning and are discussed in relation to potential links between autonomic activity, implicit learning, and decision making.

Associations between respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity and internalizing and externalizing symptoms are emotion specific

Internalizing and externalizing disorders are often, though inconsistently in studies of young children, associated with low baseline levels of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). RSA is thus considered to reflect the capacity for flexible and regulated affective reactivity and a general propensity for psychopathology. However, studies assessing RSA reactivity to emotional challenges tend to report more consistent associations with internalizing than with externalizing disorders, although it is unclear whether this is a function of the type of emotion challenges used. In the present study, we examined whether baseline RSA was associated with internalizing and/or externalizing severity in a sample of 273 young children (ages 5-6) with elevated symptoms of psychopathology. Following motivation-based models of emotion, we also tested whether RSA reactivity during withdrawal-based (fear, sadness) and approach-based (happiness, anger) emotion inductions was differentially associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms, respectively. Baseline RSA was not associated with externalizing or internalizing symptom severity. However, RSA reactivity to specific emotional challenges was associated differentially with each symptom domain. As expected, internalizing symptom severity was associated with greater RSA withdrawal (increased arousal) during fearful and sad film segments. Conversely, externalizing symptom severity was related to blunted RSA withdrawal during a happy film segment. The use of theoretically derived stimuli may be important in characterizing the nature of the deficits in emotion processing that differentiate the internalizing and externalizing domains of psychopathology.