Atypical development of resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia in children at high risk for depression

Abstract

Compromised respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA, i.e., low cardiac vagal control) frequently characterizes clinically depressed adults and also has been detected in infants of depressed mothers; however, its existence has not been established in older at-risk offspring. We investigated developmental patterns of RSA in a sample of 163 5-14 year-old children, who were either at high risk for depression (due to having a parent with a childhood-onset mood disorder) or low-risk for depression. We hypothesized that high-risk children have lower resting RSA than do low-risk children, which could reflect atypical developmental trajectories. Children's RSA was assessed during resting baseline periods on multiple occasions, typically one-year apart. Linear growth modeling indicated a group by age interaction. Low-risk children (but not the high-risk children) exhibited a significantly increasing trajectory in resting RSA with age. Mood disorders in offspring did not account for the Group X Age interaction effect. Our study provides new evidence that children at high risk for depression have an atypical developmental trajectory of RSA across late childhood.

Examining the relation between respiratory sinus arrhythmia and depressive symptoms in emerging adults: A longitudinal study

“…ers of depression and depressive symptoms (Cowen & Wood, 1991;Gentzler, Rottenberg, Kovacs, George, & Morey, 2012;Rottenberg, Clift, Bolden, & Salomon, 2007;Schmidt, Shelton, & Duman, 2011;Yaroslavsky, Rottenberg, & Kovacs, 2013). Among potential biological markers, there has been a strong interest in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA, known alternatively as cardiac vagal control, vagal tone, or high-frequency heart-rate variability; Rottenberg et al, 2007), which is a measure of parasympathetic influence on cardiac activity via the vagus nerve.…”

“…In some studies, low resting RSA is associated with higher depression or more depressive symptoms, as would be expected. In one such study, Gentzler et al (2012) followed children between the ages of 5-14 at high risk for MDD, defined as having a parent with a childhood-onset mood disorder. The high-risk group did not show the same developmental increase in resting RSA as the low risk group.…”

Interoceptive dysfunction: Toward an integrated framework for understanding somatic and affective disturbance in depression.

“…For example, vagal tone and vagal reactivity can be modified by early life stress (see Field & Diego, 2008; Porges, 2011)—changes which mediate the effects of early adverse experiences on outcomes like depression (e.g., Cyranowski et al, 2011; Gentzler et al, 2012; Thayer & Brosschot, 2005). A number of studies have similarly found long-term changes in insula activity and morphology following early stress, trauma, and abuse (e.g., Ansell et al, 2012; Mueller et al, 2010).…”

The utility of combining RSA indices in depression prediction.

“…Descriptive analyses were conducted in SPSS 19 software (SPSS, Inc., 2011); latent variable and logistic regression models were fit in Mplus version 7.0 software (Muthén & Muthén, 2008-2012. Robust full information maximum likelihood (MLR) was used to estimate parameters adjusted for randomly missing values of dependent variables, which comprised on average 0% to 11% of the sample.…”