Diminished vagally mediated heart rate variability in a compassion-eliciting task in intimate partner violence offenders

Weakened sympathetic response and lower parasympathetic activity in intimate partner violence perpetrators when empathizing: Influence of autonomous activation in affective approach and prosocial behavior

“…Notably, in the study by Stellar, the RSA levels were correlated with the participants' self‐reported empathy in response to others' suffering. Additionally, congruent with our results, Moreno et al (2023) demonstrated lower overall levels of RSA in IPV perpetrators during a similar emotional induction task compared to a control group. These authors emphasized that an optimal PNS activity is crucial for empathy, as it could influence significant functions related to social engagement (Shahrestani et al, 2014) or adaptive emotional processing (Geisler et al, 2013).…”

“…Notably, in our study, IPV perpetrators showed lower levels of RSA throughout the task. These results may reflect difficulties in mobilizing general parasympathetic resources, regardless of their attenuated sympathetic response after the task (Moreno et al, 2023). However, these results should be interpreted with caution, as it has been emphasized that respiratory parameters may confound the relationships between RSA and cardiac vagal tone (Reyes del Paso et al, 2013), thus highlighting the need for further research.…”

“…Our findings are consistent with and further extend the understanding of emotional processing as particularly relevant factor in IPV (Brem et al, 2018; Ulloa & Hammett, 2016). Therefore, strategies for IPV intervention programs could benefit from including specific socio‐affective components such as emotional decoding or the development of interoceptive skills (Füstös et al, 2013; Moreno et al, 2023). Furthermore, it appears that IPV perpetrators do not show an inability to engage in prosocial behaviors, but rather that prosocial behavior would relate to autonomic activity to affective stimuli.…”