RSA fluctuation in major depressive disorder

Abstract

Cardiac vagal control, as measured by indices of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), has been investigated as a marker of impaired self-regulation in mental disorders, including depression. Past work in depressed samples has focused on deficits in resting RSA levels, with mixed results. This study tested the hypothesis that depression involves abnormal RSA fluctuation. RSA was measured in depressed and healthy control participants during rest and during two reactivity tasks, each followed by a recovery period. Relative to controls, depressed persons exhibited lower resting RSA levels as well as less RSA fluctuation, primarily evidenced by a lack of task-related vagal suppression. Group differences in RSA fluctuation were not accounted for by differences in physical health or respiration, whereas group differences in resting RSA level did not survive covariate analyses. Depression may involve multiple deficits in cardiac vagal control.

Dysphoria is associated with reduced cardiac vagal withdrawal during the imagery of pleasant scripts: Evidence for the positive attenuation hypothesis

“…Although parasympathetic control works to "brake" energy expenditure during resting conditions, it can be rapidly and actively withdrawn -which we refer to vagal fluctuation (Rottenberg, Clift, Bolden, & Salomon, 2007) -in response to demanding environmental conditions that require information processing or increased attention (Suess, Porges, & Plude, 1994), coping with positive or negative emotions (Beauchaine, 2001;Friedman & Thayer, 1998;Thayer, Friedman, & Borkovec, 1996), and threats to life (George et al, 1989). Therefore, vagal withdrawal found in response to emotionally arousing scripts appears to be an important pattern of autonomic modulation to flexibly respond to environmental stimuli in healthy individuals (Porges, 1995(Porges, , 1997.…”

The Conjoined Effect of Naturalistic Perceived Available Support and Enacted Support on Cardiovascular Reactivity During a Laboratory Stressor

“…Vagal innervation of the heart can be quantified by analyzing respiratory-related heart rate variability (HRV). Indeed, recent research suggests that elevated tonic HRV together with a pronounced reduction in HRV during stress is indicative of a better emotion regulation capability [28,31,32]. Even more, the Polyvagal Theory [33,34] suggests that HRV may indicate the activity of a so-called social engagement system, linking vagal tone with different cranial nerves of the head that are involved in the regulation of various behaviors that play key roles in the exchange with the environment (i.e., facial expressions, looking, listening, vocalizing, self-soothing, and calming behaviors).…”

The Value of a Smile: Child Positive Affect Moderates Relations Between Maternal Emotion Dysregulation and Child Adjustment Problems

“…Alternatively, mothers' physiological emotion dysregulation was not significantly correlated with child adjustment problems at the bivariate level. Importantly, there was considerable individual variability in the RSA change scores, as has been previously documented in the literature (Burleson et al 2003;Rottenberg et al 2007). The lack of bivariate relations between maternal physiological emotion dysregulation and child adjustment problems suggests that these relations are complex and vary based on children's emotional functioning.…”

“…For instance, RSA suppression has been found to be negatively associated with observed and questionnairebased indices of emotion dysregulation, mainly in youth (Calkins and Dedmon 2000;Calkins and Keane 2004). Among adults, a failure to exhibit sufficient RSA suppression has been linked to psychopathology symptoms and disorders (e.g., Movius and Allen 2005;Rottenberg et al 2007). Similarly, greater RSA suppression has even been found to predict adults' later recovery from depression (Rottenberg et al 2005).…”

“…Similar speech tasks have been implemented in the adult literature to examine changes in RSA (e.g. Rottenberg et al 2007). Using RSA suppression values from the speech task provided a means for assessing how mothers' dysregulation during a stressful situation relates to their children's adjustment.…”