Decreased reaction time variability is associated with greater cardiovascular responses to acute stress

Abstract

Cardiovascular (CV) responses to mental stress are prospectively associated with poor CV outcomes. The association between CV responses to mental stress and reaction times (RTs) in aging individuals may be important but warrants further investigation. The present study assessed RTs to examine associations with CV responses to mental stress in healthy, older individuals using robust regression techniques. Participants were 262 men and women (mean age = 63.3 ± 5.5 years) from the Whitehall II cohort who completed a RT task (Stroop) and underwent acute mental stress (mirror tracing) to elicit CV responses. Blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rate variability were measured at baseline, during acute stress, and through a 75‐min recovery. RT measures were generated from an ex‐Gaussian distribution that yielded three predictors: mu‐RT, sigma‐RT, and tau‐RT, the mean, standard deviation, and mean of the exponential component of the normal distribution, respectively. Decreased intraindividual RT variability was marginally associated with greater systolic (B = −.009, SE = .005, p = .09) and diastolic (B = −.004, SE = .002, p = .08) blood pressure reactivity. Decreased intraindividual RT variability was associated with impaired systolic blood pressure recovery (B = −.007, SE = .003, p = .03) and impaired vagal tone (B = −.0047, SE = .0024, p = .045). Study findings offer tentative support for an association between RTs and CV responses. Despite small effect sizes and associations not consistent across predictors, these data may point to a link between intrinsic neuronal plasticity and CV responses.

Self-Compassion and Psycho-Physiological Recovery From Recalled Sport Failure

“…Moreover, additional pairwise comparisons showed that the differences in HRV approached the conventional level of significance between baseline and recovery ( p = 0.07) and stressor to recovery ( p = 0.07). The reduction in HRV during a stressor is consistent with differences observed in other studies that have utilized a standard laboratory stressor (Arch et al, 2014; Wawrzyniak et al, 2016) and greater than reductions observed during personally relevant, stressful imagery task (Levine et al, 2016). Participants reported that they were able to easily generate their failure images ( M = 5.26 out of 7, SD = 1.24), and these images were clear ( M = 5.63 out of 7, SD = 1.17), emotional ( M = 4.60 out of 7, SD = 0.99) and meaningful ( M = 5.20 out of 7, SD = 1.10).…”

“…Indeed, the regulation of HRV has implications for well-being (Porges, 2007; Thayer et al, 2012), health (Thayer and Sternberg, 2006) and performance (Wawrzyniak et al, 2016; Williams et al, 2016) that may be beneficial to athletes. For example, sustained low or dysregulated HRV predicts behavioral risk factors (inhibition and risk aversion; Porges, 2007; Thayer et al, 2012) and psychological risk factors (negativity bias and poor emotional regulation; Thayer and Lane, 2009; Thayer et al, 2012) for psychopathology and adverse health (e.g., glucose dysregulation, inflammation and disrupted hypothalamic-pituitary axis function; Thayer and Sternberg, 2006; Thayer and Lane, 2009; Juster et al, 2010; Thayer et al, 2012).…”

“…For example, sustained low or dysregulated HRV predicts behavioral risk factors (inhibition and risk aversion; Porges, 2007; Thayer et al, 2012) and psychological risk factors (negativity bias and poor emotional regulation; Thayer and Lane, 2009; Thayer et al, 2012) for psychopathology and adverse health (e.g., glucose dysregulation, inflammation and disrupted hypothalamic-pituitary axis function; Thayer and Sternberg, 2006; Thayer and Lane, 2009; Juster et al, 2010; Thayer et al, 2012). Further, withdrawal of parasympathetic tone during a stressor is associated with longer reaction times and lowered accuracy (Wawrzyniak et al, 2016; Williams et al, 2016), both of which have implications for sport performance. Though we did not test this in this study, our findings suggest that adopting self-compassion should facilitate optimal health and performance for athletes when they encounter performance stressors, given its association with high HRV (Arch et al, 2014).…”

Cluster randomised controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a Structured Health Intervention For Truckers (the SHIFT study): a study protocol

“…The Stroop test will be administered over a 5 min period using a validated software package to provide a measure of reaction time, sensitivity to interference and the ability to suppress an automated response—reading colour names in favour of naming the font colour 53. To examine psychophysiological reactivity, acute stress will be induced using a 5 min mirror-tracing task (Campden Instruments), during which measures of blood pressure and heart rate will be taken 54…”

The Effect of a Pseudo Winning or Losing Streak on Mental Attitudes and the Evaluation of Results

“…The mean RT was calculated as the time between the presentation of the response signal (S2) and the subject's button press response. The coefficient of variation of the RT (CV-RT) was defined as the consistency of performance (Deary & Der, 2005; Kofler et al., 2013; Wawrzyniak, Hamer, Steptoe, & Endrighi, 2016). Trials in which the RT was less than 100 ms were defined as responses that were too fast (Lamme & Roelfsema, 2000; Swensson, 1988), and trials in which the RT was greater than 3 SD were defined as responses that were two slow (Miller, 1991); these too fast and too slow trials were excluded from the analysis of the RT and CV-RT.…”