247 research outputs found
First Evaluation of an Index of Low Vagally-Mediated Heart Rate Variability as a Marker of Health Risks in Human Adults: Proof of Concept.
Multiple studies have demonstrated low vagally-mediated heart rate variability (HRV) being associated with a range of risk factors for heart disease and stroke, including inflammation, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension. Yet, no cut point exists that indicates elevated risk. In the present study we sought to identify a cut point-value for HRV that is associated with elevated risk across a range of known risk factors. METHODS:A total of 9550 working adults from 19 study sites took part in a health assessment that included measures of inflammation, hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension and vagally-mediated HRV (Root mean square of successive differences between normal heartbeats (RMSSD)). Multiple age and sex adjusted logistic regressions were calculated per risk factor (normal versus clinical range), with RMSSD being entered in binary at different cut points ranging from 15-39 msec with a 2 msec increment. RESULTS:For daytime RMSSD, values below 25 ± 4 indicated elevated risk (odds ratios (OR) 1.5-3.5 across risk factors). For nighttime RMSSD, values below 29 ± 4 indicated elevated risk (OR 1.2-2.0). CONCLUSION:These results provide the first evidence that a single value of RMSSD may be associated with elevated risk across a range of established cardiovascular risk factors and may present an easy to assess novel marker of cardiovascular risk
What the Heart Says to the Brain (and vice versa) and Why We Should Listen
In the present paper we describe a model of neurovisceral integration in which a set of neural structures involved in cognitive, affective, and autonomic regulation are related to heart rate variability (HRV) and cognitive performance. We will provide pharmacological and neuroimaging data in support of the neural structures linking the central nervous system to HRV. Next, we will review a number of studies from our group showing that individual differences in HRV are related to performance on tasks associated with executive function and prefrontal cortical activity as well as with emotional regulation. In the first study, individual differences in resting HRV we related to performance on executive and nonexecutive function tasks. The results showed that greater HRV was associated with better performance on executive function tasks. In another experiment, HRV was manipulated by physical detraining. Again, those that maintained their HRV at the post-test showed better performance on executive function tasks. In an experiment investigating emotional regulation we showed that resting levels of HRV were related to emotion modulated startle responses such that those with higher HRV produced context appropriate responses compared to those with low HRV. We propose that these findings have important implications for the understanding of the two-way communication between the heart and the brain
Hemodynamic profiles of functional and dysfunctional forms of repetitive thinking
Background: The ability of the human brain to escape the here and now (mind wandering) can take functional (problem solving) and dysfunctional (perseverative cognition) routes. Although it has been proposed that only the latter may act as a mediator of the relationship between stress and cardiovascular disease, both functional and dysfunctional forms of repetitive thinking have been associated with blood pressure (BP) reactivity of the same magnitude. However, a similar BP reactivity may be caused by different physiological determinants, which may differ in their risk for cardiovascular pathology. Purpose: To examine the way (hemodynamic profile) and the extent (compensation deficit) to which total peripheral resistance and cardiac output compensate for each other in determining BP reactivity during functional and dysfunctional types of repetitive thinking. Methods: Fifty-six healthy participants randomly underwent a perseverative cognition, a mind wandering, and a problem solving induction, each followed by a 5-min recovery period while their cardiovascular parameters were continuously monitored. Results: Perseverative cognition and problem solving (but not mind wandering) elicited BP increases of similar magnitude. However, perseverative cognition was characterized by a more vascular (versus myocardial) profile compared to mind wandering and problem solving. As a consequence, BP recovery was impaired after perseverative cognition compared to the other two conditions. Conclusions: Given that high vascular resistance and delayed recovery are the hallmarks of hypertension the results suggest a potential mechanism through which perseverative cognition may act as a mediator in the relationship between stress and risk for developing precursors to cardiovascular disease
Cardiac sympathovagal activity initiates a functional brain-body response to emotional processing
A century-long debate on bodily states and emotions persists. While the involvement of bodily activity in emotion physiology is widely recognized, the specificity and causal role of such activity related to brain dynamics has not yet been demonstrated. We hypothesize that the peripheral neural monitoring and control of cardiovascular activity prompts and sustains brain dynamics during an emotional experience, so these afferent inputs are processed by the brain by triggering a concurrent efferent information transfer to the body. To this end, we investigated the functional brain-heart interplay under emotion elicitation in publicly available data from 62 healthy participants using a computational model based on synthetic data generation of EEG and ECG signals. Our findings show that sympathovagal activity plays a leading and causal role in initiating the emotional response, in which ascending modulations from vagal activity precede neural dynamics and correlate to the reported level of arousal. The subsequent dynamic interplay observed between the central and autonomic nervous systems sustains emotional processing. These findings should be particularly revealing for the psychophysiology and neuroscience of emotions.
Significance We investigate the temporal dynamics of brain and cardiac activities in healthy subjects who underwent an emotional elicitation through videos. We demonstrate that, within the first few seconds, emotional stimuli modulate the heart activity, which in turn stimulate an emotion-specific cortical response in the brain. Then, the conscious emotional experience is sustained by a bidirectional brain-heart interplay and information exchange. Moreover, the perceived intensity of an emotional stimulus is predicted by the intensity of neural control regulating the heart activity. These findings may constitute the fundamental knowledge linking neurophysiology and psychiatric disorders, including the link between depressive symptoms and cardiovascular disorders
Trait Anxiety Is Associated with Negative Interpretations When Resolving Valence Ambiguity of Surprised Faces
The current research examines whether trait anxiety is associated with negative interpretation bias when resolving valence ambiguity of surprised faces. To further isolate the neuro-cognitive mechanism, we presented angry, happy, and surprised faces at broad, high, and low spatial frequency and asked participants to determine the valence of each face. High trait anxiety was associated with more negative interpretations of broad spatial frequency (i.e., intact) surprised faces. However, the modulation of trait anxiety on the negative interpretation of surprised faces disappeared at high and low spatial frequencies. The current study provides evidence that trait anxiety modulates negative interpretations of broad spatial frequency surprised faces. However, the negative interpretation of low spatial frequency surprised faces appears to be a robust default response that occurs regardless of individual differences in trait anxiety
Heart rate variability and cortisol responses during attentional and working memory tasks in naval cadets
The aim of the paper was to study the relationship between heart rate variability (HRV) and cortisol release
during cognitive challenging tasks. Forty-nine male naval cadets from the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy
were administered computerised versions of attentional and working memory tests. The results from this
study support the hypothesis of a negative correlation between HRV and cortisol secretion during cognitive
tasks. Confirmation of the hypothesis with the low HRV group scoring higher on cortisol only during performance
of cognitive tasks and recovery was also found. Furthermore, a replication of the previous findings
of a negative association between cortisol levels and performance were supported when using uncorrected
comparisons. None of the correlations survived Bonferonin corrections. The findings are discussed in
relation to factors increasing HRV, thus improving tolerance to cognitive stress in onboard environments
Editorial: Can't get you out of my head: brain-body interactions in perseverative cognition
Perseverative cognition represents a prototypical example of how our internal thoughts can impact our psychological and physical health, as if we were facing an actual environmental stressor (Brosschot et al., 2006). The mechanisms involved—together with other emblematic examples like the placebo effect—provide clear evidence for brain-body interaction. This collection of articles presents recent advances in our understanding of perseverative cognition that have arisen from the integration of multidisciplinary approaches encompassing cognitive and clinical psychology, affective neuroscience, and autonomic physiology. These advances carry with them the promise of more effective treatments to mitigate the negative consequences of maladaptive perseverative cognition on health and well-being
Resting State Vagally-Mediated Heart Rate Variability Is Associated With Neural Activity During Explicit Emotion Regulation
Resting state vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) is related to difficulties in emotion regulation (ER). The prefrontal cortex (PFC) provides inhibitory control over the amygdala during ER. Previous studies linked vmHRV with activity in the ventromedial PFC (vmPFC) during implicit ER. To date no study examined the relation between vmHRV and brain activity during explicit ER. vmHRV was measured during a 7 min baseline at T1 2–5 days preceding T2. At T2 n = 24 participants (50% female, Mage = 24.6 years) viewed neutral or emotional pictures of pleasant or unpleasant valence and were instructed to intensify or to reduce their present emotion using two ER strategies (reappraisal and responsemodulation) or to passively view the picture. Participants rated the valence of their emotional state from pleasant to unpleasant after ER. Whole-brain fMRI data were collected using a 1.5-T-scanner. We observed an association between resting state vmHRV and brain activation in the PFC and the amygdala during ER of unpleasant emotions. Groups based on vmHRV showed significant differences in the modulation of amygdala activity as a function of ER strategy. In participants with high vmHRV amygdala activity was modulated only when using reappraisal and for low vmHRV participants only when using response modulation. Similar, dorsomedial PFC activity in high vmHRV participants was increased when using reappraisal and in low vmHRV participants when using response modulation to regulate unpleasant emotions. These results suggest that individuals with low vmHRV might have difficulties in recruiting prefrontal brain areas necessary for the modulation of amygdala activity during explicit ER
Examining the association between perceived discrimination and heart rate variability in African Americans.
Previous research attempting to delineate the role of discrimination in racial/ethnic disparities in hypertension has focused largely on blood pressure, which is chiefly governed by the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. Consequently, few studies have considered the role of the parasympathetic branch and particularly its regulation of the heart via the vagus nerve
Rumination as a Mediator of Chronic Stress Effects on Hypertension: A Causal Model
Chronic stress has been linked to hypertension, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly specified. We suggest that chronic stress poses a risk for hypertension through repeated occurrence of acute stressors (often stemming from the chronic stress context) that cause activation of stress-mediating physiological systems. Previous models have often focused on the magnitude of the acute physiological response as a risk factor; we attempt to extend this to address the issue of duration of exposure. Key to our model is the notion that these acute stressors can emerge not only in response to stressors present in the environment, but also to mental representations of those (or other) stressors. Consequently, although the experience of any given stressor may be brief, a stressor often results in a constellation of negative cognitions and emotions that form a mental representation of the stressor. Ruminating about this mental representation of the stressful event can cause autonomic activation similar to that observed in response to the original incident, and may occur and persist long after the event itself has ended. Thus, rumination helps explain how chronic stress causes repeated (acute) activation of one's stress-mediating physiological systems, the effects of which accumulate over time, resulting in hypertension risk
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