Autonomic reactivity and psychopathology in middle childhood

Abstract

School-age children with mental health symptoms showed a pattern of autonomic dimorphism in their reactivity to standardised challenges. This observation may be of use in early identification of children with presyndromal psychopathology.

Polyvagal Theory and developmental psychopathology: Emotion dysregulation and conduct problems from preschool to adolescence

“…First, they exhibit both sympathetic underarousal at baseline and sympathetic insensitivity to reward at a very early age, marking a general disinhibitory tendency.. Second, this disinhibition is met with PNS deficiencies that contribute to increased emotional lability (see also Boyce et al, 2001). In all likelihood, this places them at risk for a host of psychopathological conditions covering the entire externalizing spectrum.…”

Children's memory for a mild stressor: The role of sympathetic activation and parasympathetic withdrawal

“…Nonetheless, studies reveal substantial individual differences in children's reactions to these stressors. These differences have implications for a range of health and behavioral outcomes (e.g., Boyce et al, 2001;Monk et al, 2001; see Gunnar, Bruce, & Donzella, 2001) and, as tested here, possibly memory outcomes.…”

“…This age range was selected to be comparable to the ages included in several prior studies of physiological stress reactivity and memory in children (Quas et al, 2004;Vandermaas et al, 1993) and for theoretical reasons concerning likely differences across this age range in children's physiological reactions to novel, laboratory challenges (Alkon et al, 2003;see Alpert & Wilson, 1992). Finally, the protocol employed in the study has been standardized for use with children within the study's age range (e.g., Alkon et al, 2003;Boyce et al, 2001). …”

“…Specifically, children who exhibit consistently high levels of parasympathetic withdrawal in laboratory contexts are at increased risk for internalizing behavior problems and extreme social and behavior inhibition (e.g., Boyce et al, 2001;Reznick et al, 1986). Behavioral problems are often related to difficulty with emotion regulation, especially during potentially arousing situations.…”

Emotion: The self-regulatory sense

“…365 It is now well documented that environmental factors such as maltreatment, family adversity, marital conflict, maternal depression, and even financial distress are been linked with cognitive deficits and socio-emotional behavioral problems in children. [366][367][368][369][370][371][372][373][374][375][376][377][378][379] The mechanism of such biological embedding has been called "time dependent sensitization," 380 "neural sensitization," 381 "sensory hyper-arousal," 382 "central sensitization," 383 "central nervous system sensitization," 384 and "sensitivity to context," 385 but by any name, they reflect the self-regulatory feedback dynamics-and epigenetic and immune manifestations-of the emotional sense.…”