Quantifying respiratory sinus arrhythmia: Effects of misspecifying breathing frequencies across development

Abstract

Low resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and to a lesser extent excessive RSA reactivity to emotion evocation, are observed in many psychiatric disorders characterized by emotion dysregulation, including syndromes spanning the internalizing and externalizing spectra, and other conditions such as nonsuicidal self-injury. Nevertheless, some inconsistencies exist. For example, null outcomes in studies of RSA-emotion dysregulation relations are sometimes observed among younger participants. Such findings may derive from use of age inappropriate frequency bands in calculating RSA. We combine data from five published samples (N = 559) spanning ages 4 to 17 years, and reanalyze RSA data using age-appropriate respiratory frequencies. Misspecifying respiratory frequencies results in overestimates of resting RSA and underestimates of RSA reactivity, particularly among young children. Underestimates of developmental shifts in RSA and RSA reactivity from preschool to adolescence were also observed. Although correlational analyses revealed weak negative associations between resting RSA and aggression, those with clinical levels of externalizing exhibited lower resting RSA than their peers. No associations between RSA reactivity and externalizing were observed. Results confirm that age-corrected frequency bands should be used when estimating RSA, and that literature-wide overestimates of resting RSA, underestimates of RSA reactivity, and underestimates of developmental shifts in RSA and RSA reactivity may exist.

Physiological and behavioral effects of interpersonal validation: A multilevel approach to examining a core intervention strategy among self‐injuring adolescents and their mothers

“…For example, Crowell et al () found minute‐to‐minute concordance between observed aversiveness and physiological dysregulation among a sample of depressed and self‐injuring adolescents. Mothers and teens demonstrated RSA withdrawal to their own and their dyad partner's aversive behavior, indicating poor physiological regulation in response to conflict (Shader et al, ). In contrast, control dyads showed RSA increases during aversive displays.…”

RSA reactivity in response to viewing bullying film and adolescent social adjustment

“…Second, various studies have not corrected for respiratory parameters in quantifying RSA. Thus, consistent with the recommendations of Shader et al (2018), the current study used different respiration bands to calculate RSA for different age groups and compared to previous common practice of using the typical and the same respiration band. Third, researchers recently have pointed out that previous studies have mis-specified breathing frequencies and age-corrected frequency bands should be used to quantify RSA (Shader et al, 2018).…”

“…First, when assessing RSA reactivity, previous studies have used standardized residual scores (e.g., El-Sheikh et al, 2009;Obradović et al, 2010), which are between-subject rather than within-subject changes, although they are closely linked to simple change scores which better reflect RSA reactivity. Third, researchers recently have pointed out that previous studies have mis-specified breathing frequencies and age-corrected frequency bands should be used to quantify RSA (Shader et al, 2018). RSA values are typically confounded with concurrent physical activity which may alter respiration (Grossman & Taylor, 2007;Overbeek, van Boxtel, & Westerink, 2012).…”

“…From the heart rate variability spectra, RSA values in ms 2 were calculated as the power within the high frequency bands (we used different bands for adolescents of different ages, the lower values vary from 0.15 for 17-year-olds to 0.25 Hz for 10-year-olds, the upper value was 0.50 Hz for everyone; seeShader et al, 2018). From the heart rate variability spectra, RSA values in ms 2 were calculated as the power within the high frequency bands (we used different bands for adolescents of different ages, the lower values vary from 0.15 for 17-year-olds to 0.25 Hz for 10-year-olds, the upper value was 0.50 Hz for everyone; seeShader et al, 2018).…”

Children's physiological reactivity in emotion contexts and prosocial behavior

“…However, as noted by Shader et al (2018), this range includes adult respiratory frequencies (i.e., those falling below 0.28 Hz), which may have introduced noise into our RSA calculations and underestimated children's parasympathetic reactivity patterns. Importantly, Shader et al (2018) focused on parasympathetic withdrawal, rather than augmentation; thus, it is not clear whether and how respiratory frequency bands may influence estimates of parasympathetic augmentation. Importantly, Shader et al (2018) focused on parasympathetic withdrawal, rather than augmentation; thus, it is not clear whether and how respiratory frequency bands may influence estimates of parasympathetic augmentation.…”