Physiological responses to repeated stress in individuals with high and low trait resilience

Brain and heart activity during interactions with pet dogs: A portable electroencephalogram and heart rate variability study

Dog ownership has been linked to numerous benefits to human health and wellbeing. However, due to the lack of previous research on changes to brain activity during interactions with pet dogs, the underlying psychophysiological mechanisms are still unclear. The aim of the present study was to examine changes in heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and electroencephalogram (EEG) power during interactions between dog owners and their pet dog. Fifty healthy adult dog owners completed baseline psychological measures and pet attachment scales. Subjective units of relaxation (SUR) as well as continuous EEG, HR, and HRV via portable devices were measured during five experimental conditions (baseline resting, relaxation-induction exercise, patting a toy dog, real dog present, and patting a real dog) in participants' homes. SUR was higher in all experimental conditions than at baseline. SUR was also higher during dog interaction than when the dog was present with no interaction. However, SUR during dog interaction was not significantly different from the toy dog and relaxation induction condition. Higher delta, theta, alpha, beta power and HR were found during dog interaction than all other conditions. Higher HRV was found during dog interaction compared to baseline, patting a toy dog, and relaxation-induction exercise, but not significantly different from the real dog present only condition. Lastly, overall HR correlated with psychological measures. Overall, the results show that there are significant changes in brain and heart activity when humans interact with pet dogs, consistent with increases in relaxation and focussed attention. These findings are relevant to understanding the potential mechanisms for health benefits associated with pets.

Social participation is associated with a habituated blood pressure response to recurrent stress

Lower cardiovascular reactivity is a proposed marker of motivational dysregulation and is related to a range of adverse behavioural and health outcomes. Social participation is a form of motivated behaviour and represents the frequency in which an individual engages in social activities. Low social participation has recently been linked to lower cardiovascular responses to acute psychological stress. With recent work emphasizing the importance of assessing adaptation of the cardiovascular response to recurrent stress, the aim of the current study is to build on previous work by examining the relationship between social participation and cardiovascular stress response adaptation. This study utilised data from the Pittsburgh Cold Study 3 (PCS 3). Two hundred and thirteen participants (M = 30.13; SD = 10.85) completed a social participation measure and had their systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate (HR) monitored across two separate standardized stress testing sessions. The testing sessions consisted of a 20-minute baseline and a 15-minute stress task. Results indicated that higher levels of social participation were associated with greater blood pressure habituation to recurrent stress, extending previous work identifying that social participation was associated with higher cardiovascular responses to stress. The present study identifies that those reporting greater levels of social participation may show enhanced stress tolerance when exposed to recurrent stress.

Association of resilience with female sexual dysfunction

OBJECTIVES

Female sexual dysfunction (FSD), a common concern affecting women of all ages, is often mediated by important psychological factors. Resilience has been shown to correlate with psychological well-being across different groups of people. The aim of this study was to assess if there is an association between resilience and FSD.

STUDY DESIGN

This cross-sectional study included 4,366 women (mean [SD] age, 51.7 [11]) seen in women's health clinics at 1 of 3 geographic Mayo Clinic locations. Participants completed the Brief Resilience Scale, the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), and the Female Sexual Distress Scale-Revised (FSDS-R).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

We used univariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses to assess associations between resilience, sexual function, and sexual distress, adjusting for potential confounding variables.

RESULTS

FSD criteria (FSFI ≤26.55 and FSDS-R ≥ 11) were met by 55.8 % of women. Low, normal, and high levels of resilience were reported by 17.3 %, 57.1 %, and 25.6 % of participants, respectively. The univariate analysis showed that higher resilience was associated with lower sexual distress, lower odds of FSD, and better sexual function. Multivariable analysis adjusted for potential confounders showed that the association persisted and that higher resilience correlated with better sexual function and lower odds of FSD.

CONCLUSIONS

In this large cross-sectional study, women with higher resilience scores had better sexual function and lower odds of FSD. Additional studies with diverse women are needed to confirm this association and to determine whether women with FSD could benefit from enhancing resilience as a therapeutic strategy.

The mediating role of childhood maltreatment in the association between residence migration and adolescent depression

BACKGROUND

It is well established that residence migration can negatively affect the mental health of adolescents. However, the related factors that mediate the association between residence migration and depression are still uncertain.

METHODS

The participants were 16,037 adolescents in junior middle schools. A self-administered questionnaire was used for the survey. In addition to collecting general demographic characteristics of the participants, including age, gender, local residence status, only child status, parental marriage status and parent-child relationship, the questionnaire also contained the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire, the short form of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS software.

RESULTS

A total of 14,059 valid questionnaires were collected, resulting in 12,122 local adolescents, defined as being born and raised locally, and 1937 migrant adolescents, defined as being transferred from other regions. Meanwhile, 53.3 % of local adolescents and 58.2 % of migrant adolescents reported depressive symptoms. This result indicated that residence migration might contribute to depression symptoms(OR = 1.136, 95%CI: 1.013-1.273, p < 0.05). Childhood maltreatment and parental divorce are risk factors for depression in migrant adolescents. For all adolescents, resilience and a good parent-child relationship may reduce the risk of depression. Childhood maltreatment completely mediates residence migration-related depression(95 % bootstrap CI = 0.146, 0.323).

CONCLUSION

This study revealed that residence migration could contribute to adolescent depression, and childhood maltreatment may largely mediate this process, providing new insight into the relationship between adolescent depressive symptoms and residence migration. Reducing childhood maltreatment may effectively improve the depressive symptoms of migrant adolescents.

Nonlinear Moderation Effect of Vagal Regulation on the Link between Childhood Trauma and Adolescent Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms

Childhood trauma is a leading early adverse environment that increases psychopathological symptoms. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) suppression to challenges as a marker of self-regulation is found to linearly moderate the link between early adverse experiences and psychopathological symptoms, but yielding mixed findings. The present study examined the relationships between childhood trauma and internalizing and externalizing symptoms via a 1.5-year longitudinal design and the quadratic moderation effect of RSA suppression on these relationships among adolescents. In November 2021 (T1), the final sample of 275 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 12.94, SDage = 0.79; 49.82% females) completed the short form of Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Achenbach Youth Self-Report-2001 and underwent a speech task during which their baseline RSA and stress exposure RSA were obtained. In June 2023 (T2), 251 adolescents completed the Achenbach Youth Self-Report-2001. Results showed that childhood trauma at T1 was positively correlated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms at T1 and T2. RSA suppression to stress quadratically moderated these associations, such that adolescents with moderate rather than higher or lower RSA suppression had the least internalizing and externalizing symptoms at T1 and T2 when exposed to childhood trauma. The findings suggest that moderate RSA suppression to stress as a marker of optimal vagal regulation buffers the risk of developmental psychopathology from early adverse experiences.

Emotion regulation tendencies and cardiovascular responses to repeated acute psychological stress

Poor emotion regulation has been associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) through maladaptive cardiovascular responses to psychological stress. However, there has been scant research examining the relationship between emotion regulation and habituation of cardiovascular responses to recurrent stress, which may be more directly applicable to the experience of stress in everyday life. The aims of the current study were to examine the associations between emotion regulation tendencies and cardiovascular stress reactivity, as well as habituation of cardiovascular reactivity across repeated stressors. A sample of 453 participants (mean (SD) age = 19.5 (1.3) years; 62 % women) completed a repeated stress paradigm, which consisted of two 10-minute baselines and two identical 4-minute stress tasks, separated by a 10-minute recovery period. Heart rate (HR) was measured continuously; systolic/diastolic blood pressures (SBP/DBP) were measured every 2 min. At the end of the visit, participants completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Results indicate that impulse control difficulties when distressed (a DERS subscale) were significantly associated with blunted SBP, DBP, and HR reactivity to both stressors, as well as impaired HR habituation across the stressors. None of the ERQ subscales (cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression) were found to be associated with cardiovascular stress reactivity or habituation. The outcomes of this study demonstrate a potential underlying physiological pathway through which impulse control difficulties when distressed may contribute to CVD risk. This study also reveals the importance of extending traditional cardiovascular stress reactivity protocols to include multiple exposures of the same stress task.

Resilience as a predictor of habituation

Habituation refers to the physiological adaptation to recurrent stressors, which can be measured by cortisol levels, and is considered a central mechanism in reducing allostatic load. Resilience, a potential factor influencing stress reduction, is the focus of this study. Specifically, the study aims to investigate the impact of resilience, as assessed by the Brief Resilience Scale (BRS), on habituation. The Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) was used as the recurrent stressor, and it was administered to each of the 56 subjects at 4 consecutive measurements. To assess habituation, various physiological parameters including the area under the curve with respect to the ground (AUCg) and with respect to the increase (AUCi), cortisol peak, slope from baseline to peak, and recovery were calculated. Mixed linear models were employed to examine the differences in the influence of resilience on habituation across the different time points. The findings indicate that the influence of resilience significantly varies from the first to the fourth measurement time point for AUCg (p = .048), while no significant differences were observed for the other cortisol parameters. The effects plot suggests that individuals with higher levels of resilience exhibit lower AUCg values throughout the measurements. These findings provide initial evidence supporting resilience as a predictor of cortisol habituation. However, future studies should also consider dynamic resilience models, utilizing longitudinally assessed resilience as a predictor for habituation, to explore whether resilience acts as a determinant of habituation or if habituation itself constitutes a resilience mechanism.

Associations of resilience and respiratory sinus arrhythmia with alienation among college students

BACKGROUND

Although the sense of alienation is harmful and causes many developmental problems, very few studies have focused on its antecedent variables and when these variables are related to alienation. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between resilience and sense of alienation among college students, and the moderating role of baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in this association.

METHOD

Physiological data were collected during a resting condition in the laboratory from 109 college students aged from 17 to 21 years (M = 18.94, SD = 0.92). Questionnaires that captured demographic information, resilience, and sense of alienation, were also completed.

RESULTS

Results indicated that resilience was negatively related to the sense of alienation. Moreover, this negative relationship was moderated by baseline RSA such that it was significant only among students with low levels of baseline RSA.

CONCLUSION

Our findings revealed that individuals with low resilience tend to have a higher level of alienation if their baseline RSA is relatively low.

DISCUSSION

The current study sheds light on the psychological and biological characteristics of these individuals who tend to have higher levels of alienation, which may be useful for intervention program developers and practitioners.

Adaptation to social-evaluative threat: Effects of repeated acceptance and status stressors on cardiovascular reactivity

Social-evaluative threat plays a key role in research on stress, health and related psychophysiological mechanisms such as cardiovascular reactivity (CVR). Social-evaluative threats can activate two broad social motives: striving for status, achievement and influence, and/or striving for acceptance, inclusion, and connection. Prior research emphasizes threats related to status (e.g., task performance) or combined threats to status and acceptance, obscuring their independent effects. Further, because prior research has mostly utilized single stressors, it is not clear if effects of social-evaluative threats involving status and acceptance on CVR persist or adapt quickly over repeated exposures. To address these issues, 139 undergraduates (93 females) were randomly assigned to undergo two repetitions of a stressful role-played interaction with a pre-recorded antagonistic partner under one of four conditions in a factorial design: low evaluative threat, high status threat only, high acceptance threat only, or a combined threat. In a single laboratory session, systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP) and heart rate (HR) were recorded during baseline and two stressor exposures. Task-induced CVR demonstrated significant adaptation across exposures. Both forms of social evaluative threat produced additional CVR, and these differences between high and low social-evaluative threat were generally maintained across exposures. Hence, threats to social status and acceptance have independent and sustained effects on CVR across multiple stressor exposures, even in the context of overall adaptation of cardiovascular responses.

A brief nap during an acute stressor improves negative affect

Overnight sleep can reduce perceived stress, and improve associated cognitive disruptions and negative affect after an acute stressor. Whether a brief nap can also bestow these benefits in a non-sleep-restricted population is currently unknown. In this study that used a between-subjects design, stress was triggered by administering a modified Trier Social Stress Test to two groups of participants (nap [n = 29], wake [n = 41]). All participants were instructed they would give a speech during the study but the topic would be withheld until later, and then completed a math task. After a 40-min break in which participants watched a neutral video or took a nap monitored with electroencephalography, stress was reinforced by presenting the speech topics and giving participants a 10-min preparation period. Next, instead of giving a speech, the study ended and participants were debriefed. Negative affect, perceived stress and working memory were measured at multiple time points before and after the break. Both groups showed lower perceived stress and improved working memory after the break than before, but a nap did not confer additional benefits for perceived stress or working memory beyond taking a break. However, the nap group exhibited lower negative affect after the break than the wake group, and only the nap group showed a reduction in negative affect compared with initial negative affect levels. These results indicate a nap can improve negative emotions accompanying a stressor to a greater extent than taking a break, and suggest that brief naps may be a useful way to improve mood while experiencing an acute stressor.

Lifetime Stressor Exposure and Psychophysiological Reactivity and Habituation to Repeated Acute Social Stressors

This study addressed whether lifetime stressor exposure was associated with psychophysiological reactivity and habituation to a novel laboratory-based stressor. Eighty-six participants (Mage = 23.31 years, SD = 4.94) reported their exposure to lifetime non-sport and sport-specific stressors before completing two consecutive trials of the Trier Social Stress Test, while cardiovascular (i.e., heart rate) and endocrine (i.e., salivary cortisol) data were recorded. Exposure to a moderate number of lifetime non-sport and sport-specific stressors was associated with adaptive cardiovascular reactivity, whereas very low or very high stressor exposure was related to maladaptive reactivity. Moreover, experiencing a very low number of lifetime non-sport (but not sport-specific) stressors was associated with poorer habituation. In contrast, lifetime stressor severity was unrelated to cardiovascular reactivity. Finally, greater lifetime non-sport and sport-specific stressor counts were associated with blunted cortisol reactivity and poorer habituation. These results suggest that lifetime stressor exposure may influence sport performers' acute stress responses.

Attachment avoidance and internalizing symptoms: Does respiratory sinus arrhythmia withdrawal make a difference?

OBJECTIVE

This study investigated the association between attachment avoidance and internalizing symptoms and the moderating role of parasympathetic nervous activity (indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia withdrawal) in the association.

METHODS

A sample of 109 (M_age = 18.94 years old, SD = 0.92; 69 male) Chinese college students participated in this study. Participants reported attachment avoidance and internalizing symptoms, and their physiological data were collected.

RESULTS

Results showed a positive link between attachment avoidance and internalizing symptoms. Further, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) withdrawal and attachment avoidance interactively predicted internalizing symptoms. Specifically, the positive relation between attachment avoidance and internalizing symptoms was only found among people of low, but not high, levels of RSA withdrawal.

CONCLUSION

Our study highlighted the importance of considering psychophysiological interactions in predicting internalizing symptoms in college students, and contributed to our understanding of the complicated factors underlying college students' internalizing problems.

Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Stress-Induced Network Reconfigurations Reflect Negative Affectivity

BACKGROUND

Maladaptive stress responses are important risk factors in the etiology of mood and anxiety disorders, but exact pathomechanisms remain to be understood. Mapping individual differences of acute stress-induced neurophysiological changes, especially on the level of neural activation and functional connectivity (FC), could provide important insights in how variation in the individual stress response is linked to disease risk.

METHODS

Using an established psychosocial stress task flanked by two resting states, we measured subjective, physiological, and brain responses to acute stress and recovery in 217 participants with and without mood and anxiety disorders. To estimate blockwise changes in stress-induced activation and FC, we used hierarchical mixed-effects models based on denoised time series within predefined stress-related regions. We predicted inter- and intraindividual differences in stress phases (anticipation vs. stress vs. recovery) and transdiagnostic dimensions of stress reactivity using elastic net and support vector machines.

RESULTS

We identified four subnetworks showing distinct changes in FC over time. FC but not activation trajectories predicted the stress phase (accuracy = 70%, p_perm < .001) and increases in heart rate (R² = 0.075, p_perm < .001). Critically, individual spatiotemporal trajectories of changes across networks also predicted negative affectivity (ΔR² = 0.075, p_perm = .030) but not the presence or absence of a mood and anxiety disorder.

CONCLUSIONS

Spatiotemporal dynamics of brain network reconfiguration induced by stress reflect individual differences in the psychopathology dimension of negative affectivity. These results support the idea that vulnerability for mood and anxiety disorders can be conceptualized best at the level of network dynamics, which may pave the way for improved prediction of individual risk.

OLD IDEAS, NEW DIRECTIONS: RE-EXAMINING THE PREDICTIVE UTILITY OF THE HEMODYNAMIC PROFILE OF THE STRESS RESPONSE IN HEALTHY POPULATIONS

The 'reactivity hypothesis' has a long and fruitful history in health psychology and behavioural medicine, with elements of its thesis taken as core and others lost in the plethora of research on its utility as a theory of psychosomatic disease. One such thesis is that the underlying hemodynamic profile of the stress response may be particularly revealing when detailing the impact of psychological stress on the development of cardiovascular disease. This paper re-examines old ideas surrounding the hemodynamic profile of the stress response, asking why its health-predictive properties were never fully explored. Further, this paper reviews the evidence that a vascular profile of stress responding may be especially predictive of disease development, particularly in the case of hypertension. In addition, measurement of hemodynamic profile as well as its known psychosocial moderators are reviewed including how examination of patterns of cardiovascular-stress response adaptation may extend the field. This paper highlights that the extension of the reactivity hypothesis to include both hemodynamic profile and patterns of cardiovascular stress-response adaptation may hold much explanatory power in detailing the impact of how stress responding and stress tolerance promotes disease development.

Towards a Resilience to Stress Index Based on Physiological Response: A Machine Learning Approach

This study proposes a new index to measure the resilience of an individual to stress, based on the changes of specific physiological variables. These variables include electromyography, which is the muscle response, blood volume pulse, breathing rate, peripheral temperature, and skin conductance. We measured the data with a biofeedback device from 71 individuals subjected to a 10-min psychophysiological stress test. The data exploration revealed that features' variability among test phases could be observed in a two-dimensional space with Principal Components Analysis (PCA). In this work, we demonstrate that the values of each feature within a phase are well organized in clusters. The new index we propose, Resilience to Stress Index (RSI), is based on this observation. To compute the index, we used non-supervised machine learning methods to calculate the inter-cluster distances, specifically using the following four methods: Euclidean Distance of PCA, Mahalanobis Distance, Cluster Validity Index Distance, and Euclidean Distance of Kernel PCA. While there was no statistically significant difference (p>0.01) among the methods, we recommend using Mahalanobis, since this method provides higher monotonic association with the Resilience in Mexicans (RESI-M) scale. Results are encouraging since we demonstrated that the computation of a reliable RSI is possible. To validate the new index, we undertook two tasks: a comparison of the RSI against the RESI-M, and a Spearman correlation between phases one and five to determine if the behavior is resilient or not. The computation of the RSI of an individual has a broader scope in mind, and it is to understand and to support mental health. The benefits of having a metric that measures resilience to stress are multiple; for instance, to the extent that individuals can track their resilience to stress, they can improve their everyday life.

Neurophysiological dynamics for psychological resilience: A view from the temporal axis

When an individual is faced with adversity, the brain and body work cooperatively to adapt to it. This adaptive process is termed psychological resilience, and recent studies have identified several neurophysiological factors ("neurophysiological resilience"), such as monoamines, oscillatory brain activity, hemodynamics, autonomic activity, stress hormones, and immune systems. Each factor is activated in an interactive manner during specific time windows after exposure to stress. Thus, the differences in psychological resilience levels among individuals can be characterized by differences in the temporal dynamics of neurophysiological resilience. In this review, after briefly introducing the frequently used approaches in this research field and the well-known factors of neurophysiological resilience, we summarize the temporal dynamics of neurophysiological resilience. This viewpoint clarifies an important time window, the more-than-one-hour scale, but the neurophysiological dynamics during this window remain elusive. To address this issue, we propose exploring brain-wide oscillatory activities using concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG) techniques.

Reading Struggle Stories of Role Models Can Improve Students' Growth Mindsets

Previous studies have suggested that reading stories of role models can improve the growth mindsets of students. The current study aimed to investigate the types of stories that can increase the growth mindsets of high school students, undergraduates, and graduates and how many specific stories undergraduates with low and high perseverance need to read to improve their growth mindsets. In study 1, high school students, undergraduates, and graduates were assigned to read either five struggle stories or five achievement stories of role models. Their mindsets were measured before and after reading the stories. The results showed that reading struggle stories rather than achievement stories of role models increased the growth mindsets of undergraduates and graduates. In study 2, undergraduates with high and low perseverance were assigned to read five struggle stories or five achievement stories of role models. Their mindsets were measured before reading stories and after reading each story. The results showed that the growth mindsets of undergraduates with low perseverance increased after reading two struggle stories of role models, and increased further after reading five struggle stories of role models. More importantly, the level of growth mindsets of undergraduates with low perseverance was equal to that of undergraduates with high perseverance after reading five struggle stories of role models. These findings reveal that reading struggle stories of role models can improve the growth mindsets of undergraduates and graduates. The personality of students affects the effectiveness of story-based mindset intervention.

Psychophysiological correlates of pain resilience in anticipating, experiencing, and recovering from pain

Although researchers have documented behavioral and brain structure correlates of pain resilience, associated physiological responses have received little consideration. In this study, we assessed psychophysiological differences between high (HPR), moderate (MPR), and low (LPR) pain resilience subgroups during anticipation, experiencing, and recovery from laboratory pain. In an initial pain anticipation task, participants (79 women, 32 man) viewed visual cues to signal possible mild or intense shocks prior to receiving these shocks. Subsequently, in a pain recovery task, participants received uncued mild and intense shocks. Subjective appraisals were assessed during each task in tandem with continuous recording of skin conductance level (SCL), heart rate variability (HRV), and corrugator electromyography (cEMG). On physiological indexes, HPR subgroup members displayed significantly lower SCL than MPR and LPR subgroups did during anticipation and experiencing of pain while no resilience group effects were found for HRV or cEMG. During pain recovery, HPR and LPR subgroups displayed weaker SCL than the MPR subgroup did in the immediate aftermath of shock. However, HPR members continued to display lower SCL than other groups did over an extended recovery period. On self-report measures, the LPR subgroup reported higher levels of anticipatory anxiety and expected pain than HPR and MPR subgroups did during the pain anticipation task. Together, results suggested higher pain resilience is characterized, in part, by comparatively reduced SCL during the course of anticipating, experiencing and recovering from painful shock.

Childhood abuse and social anxiety symptoms among young adults: Moderating role of respiratory sinus arrhythmia suppression to social stress

BACKGROUND

Childhood abuse (CA) has been considered as an environmental risk factor for the development of social anxiety symptoms. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is a biomarker that has been found to interact with environmental stressors to affect psychopathological symptoms. However, little is known whether RSA moderates the relationship between CA and social anxiety symptoms.

OBJECTIVE

The current study aimed to examine the relationships between CA and two forms of social anxiety symptoms including social performance anxiety symptoms (SPAS) and social interaction anxiety symptoms (SIAS), and the moderating role of baseline RSA and/or RSA suppression to a social-evaluative stress in these links.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

A total of 157 Chinese undergraduate students (Mage = 18.96, SD = 0.85, 85 % females) participated in this study.

METHOD

Participants completed the short form of Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Social Phobia Scale and Social Interaction Anxiety Scale to assess CA, SPAS and SIAS, and then underwent a social stress protocol (a public speech task) during which their baseline RSA and stress induced RSA were obtained.

RESULTS

CA was positively correlated with SPAS but was not correlated with SIAS. RSA suppression to social stress moderated the associations between CA and two forms of social anxiety symptoms, such that CA was positively associated with SPAS and SIAS among individuals with blunted RSA suppression, but not among those with greater RSA suppression.

CONCLUSIONS

Greater social stress RSA suppression as a better physiological regulation marker might ameliorate the negative effect of CA on social anxiety symptoms.

Influence of Heart Rate Variability on Abstinence-Related Changes in Brain State in Everyday Drinkers

Alcohol consumption is now common practice worldwide, and functional brain networks are beginning to reveal the complex interactions observed with alcohol consumption and abstinence. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) has a well-documented relationship with alcohol use, and a growing body of research is finding links between the ANS and functional brain networks. This study recruited everyday drinkers in an effort to uncover the relationship between alcohol abstinence, ANS function, and whole brain functional brain networks. Participants (n = 29), 24-60 years-of-age, consumed moderate levels of alcohol regularly (males 2.4 (±0.26) drinks/day, females 2.3 (±0.96) drinks/day). ANS function, specifically cardiac vagal tone, was assessed using the Porges-Bohrer method for calculating respiratory sinus arrhythmia (PB_RSA). Functional brain networks were generated from resting-state MRI scans obtained following 3-day periods of typical consumption and abstinence. A multi-task mixed-effects regression model determined the influences of HRV and drinking state on functional network connectivity. Results showed differences in the relationship between the strength of network connections and clustering coefficients across drinking states, moderated by PB_RSA. Increases in connection strength between highly clustered nodes during abstinence as PB_RSA increases demonstrates a greater possible range of topological configurations at high PB_RSA values. This novel finding begins to shed light on the complex interactions between typical alcohol abstinence and physiological responses of the central and autonomic nervous system.

Physiological and Cognitive Performance in F-22 Pilots During Day and Night Flying

BACKGROUND: Many workers routinely transition between day and night shiftsincluding pilots, where night flights are commonly considered more stressful. The physiological toll from this transition is not fully understood, though fatigue is a factor in many aviation accidents. This research investigated the changes in physiological markers of stress and cognitive performance as F-22 pilots transitioned from day flying to night flying.METHODS: There were 17 fully-qualified F-22 pilots who took part in a 2-wk data collection using salivary swabs, wrist-worn activity monitors, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) inventory, and a go/no-go (GNG) test.RESULTS: No differences were found in comparing day and night flying on the GNG reaction time/accuracy, NASA-TLX scores, or sleep quantity. Cortisol levels were significantly higher than civilian levels in all experimental conditions and control days. Participants had higher than predicted cortisol levels postflight in the day-flying condition and lower than predicted cortisol levels postflight in the night-flying condition, relative to levels from control day patterns. We also found smaller changes in cortisol (pre- to postflight) in the day-flying condition for those with more F-22 experience. Finally, we found a negative correlation between Perceived Stress Scale scores and age of pilots (r 0.72).DISCUSSION: We hypothesized that the night-flying environment would be more stressful, but our results disputed this claim. Our results suggest day flying elicits more of a stress response; however, a larger sample size is required to verify results. Preliminary findings of potential stress adaptation may suggest stress adaptation in the F-22 community needs further investigation.Combs EK, Dahlman AS, Shattuck NL, Heissel JA, Whitaker LR. Physiological and cognitive performance in F-22 pilots during day and night flying. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2021; 92(5):303311.

Instructed reappraisal and cardiovascular habituation to recurrent stress

Instructed reappraisal has previously been associated with a challenge-oriented cardiovascular response profile, indexed by greater cardiac output (CO) and lower total peripheral resistance (TPR), in response to a single stress exposure. The present study builds on this research by employing a stress habituation paradigm where participants completed a speech task twice; in which prior to the second task participants heard reappraisal instructions (i.e., view feelings of stress arousal as something that is beneficial) or control instructions. This paradigm allowed us to (a) test if reappraisal aids cardiovascular habituation to recurrent stress, and (b) examine if reappraisal leads to a within-participant change in CO/TPR responding from an uninstructed task to an instructed reappraisal task. Habitual use of reappraisal was assessed using the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. The analyses report upon 173 young adults (121 women, 52 men). Cardiovascular parameters were measured continuously using the Finometer Pro. All participants demonstrated similar cardiovascular habituation during the second stress exposure (lower SBP, CO, and HR); suggesting that reappraisal did not aid cardiovascular habituation to recurrent stress. Reappraisal instructions did not lead to a challenge-oriented response compared to both the control group and responses to the uninstructed task. This study is the first to examine the relationship between instructed reappraisal and cardiovascular habituation and identifies that habitual use of reappraisal does not interact with reappraisal instructions to influence cardiovascular responses to stress.

The relationships between resilience and student personal factors in an undergraduate medical program

BACKGROUND

Resilience is an essential aspect of wellbeing that plays a major role in undergraduate medical education. Various personal and social factors are known to affect resilience. Empirical evidence remains limited regarding resilience and the personal factors that affect it among undergraduate medical students in an Asian setting. Therefore, this study aims to identify undergraduate medical students' level of resilience and its relationships to personal factors in Indonesia.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate medical students in years 1-6. Respondents were asked to complete three validated questionnaires: the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) to measure resilience, the Brief-COPE to assess coping mechanisms, and the Big Five Personality Test to measure five personality dimensions. Descriptive and Pearson's correlation analyses were completed to explore relationships between each variable. Regression analysis was completed to analyze the extent to which coping mechanisms, personality, and academic achievement explained the variation in resilience scores.

RESULTS

A total of 1040 respondents completed the questionnaires (a 75.42% response rate). Students in both preclinical and clinical stages had quite good levels of resilience and higher scores on adaptive coping mechanisms than on maladaptive coping mechanisms. Adaptive and maladaptive coping mechanisms, Big Five Personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness), and students' academic achievement explained 46.9% of students' resilience scores.

CONCLUSIONS

Although the resilience scores in this study were comparable to resilience scores among undergraduate medical students in other settings, we found that coping mechanisms, personality traits, and academic performance may predict resilience among medical students.

Effects of Dynamic Resilience on the Reactivity of Vagally Mediated Heart Rate Variability

Dynamic resilience is a novel concept that aims to quantify how individuals are coping while operating in dynamic and complex task environments. A recently developed dynamic resilience measure, derived through autoregressive modeling, offers an avenue toward dynamic resilience classification that may yield valuable information about working personnel for industries such as defense and elite sport. However, this measure classifies dynamic resilience based upon in-task performance rather than self-regulating cognitive structures; thereby, lacking any supported self-regulating cognitive links to the dynamic resilience framework. Vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) parameters are potential physiological measures that may offer an opportunity to link self-regulating cognitive structures to dynamic resilience given their supported connection to the self-regulation of stress. This study examines if dynamic resilience classifications reveal significant differences in vagal reactivity between higher, moderate and lower dynamic resilience groups, as participants engage in a dynamic, decision-making task. An amended Three Rs paradigm was implemented that examined vagal reactivity across six concurrent vmHRV reactivity segments consisting of lower and higher task load. Overall, the results supported significant differences between higher and moderate dynamic resilience groups' vagal reactivity but rejected significant differences between the lower dynamic resilience group. Additionally, differences in vagal reactivity across vmHRV reactivity segments within an amended Three Rs paradigm were partially supported. Together, these findings offer support toward linking dynamic resilience to temporal self-regulating cognitive structures that play a role in mediating physiological adaptations during task engagement.

Psychosocial stress reactivity habituates following acute physiological stress

Acute and chronic stress are important factors in the development of mental disorders. Reliable measurement of stress reactivity is therefore pivotal. Critically, experimental induction of stress often involves multiple “hits” and it is an open question whether individual differences in responses to an earlier stressor lead to habituation, sensitization, or simple additive effects on following events. Here, we investigated the effect of the individual cortisol response to intravenous catheter placement (IVP) on subsequent neural, psychological, endocrine, and autonomous stress reactivity. We used an established psychosocial stress paradigm to measure the acute stress response (Stress) and recovery (PostStress) in 65 participants. Higher IVP‐induced cortisol responses were associated with lower pulse rate increases during stress recovery (b = −4.8 bpm, p = .0008) and lower increases in negative affect after the task (b = −4.2, p = .040). While the cortisol response to IVP was not associated with subsequent specific stress‐induced neural activation patterns, the similarity of brain responses Pre‐ and PostStress was higher IVP‐cortisol responders (t[64] = 2.35, p = .022) indicating faster recovery. In conclusion, preparatory stress induced by IVP reduced reactivity in a subsequent stress task by modulating the latency of stress recovery. Thus, an individually stronger preceding release of cortisol may attenuate a second physiological response and perceived stress suggesting that relative changes, not absolute levels are crucial for stress attribution. Our study highlights that considering the entire trajectory of stress induction during an experiment is important to develop reliable individual biomarkers.

Cardiac defense reactivity and cognitive flexibility in high- and low-resilience women

Resilience is a protective health variable that contributes to successful adaptation to stressful experiences. However, in spite of its relevance, few studies have examined the psychophysiological and neuropsychological mechanisms involved in resilience. The present study analyzes, in a sample of 54 young women, the relationships between high- and low-resilience, measured with the Spanish versions of Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale questionnaire and the Resilience Scale, and two indices of psychophysiological and neuropsychological adaptability, the cardiac defense response (CDR) and cognitive flexibility. The CDR is a specific reaction to an unexpected intense noise characterized by two acceleration-deceleration heart rate components. Cognitive flexibility, defined as the ability to adapt our behavior to changing environmental demands, is measured in this study with the CAMBIOS neuropsychological test. The results showed that the more resilient people, in addition to having better scores on mental health questionnaires, had a larger initial acceleration-deceleration of the CDR-indicative of greater vagal control, obtained better scores in cognitive flexibility, and evaluated the intense noise as less unpleasant than the less resilient people. No group differences were found in the second acceleration-deceleration of the CDR-indicative of sympathetic cardiac control, in the skin conductance response, or in subjective intensity of the noise. The present findings broaden the understanding of how resilient people change their adaptable responses to address environmental demands.

Establishing the validity of a novel passive stress task

Laboratory tasks used to elicit a cardiovascular stress response in the laboratory can involve either active or passive coping. However, in previous work, passive stress tasks often incorporate a distinct physical stress element, such as the handgrip or cold pressor task, meaning observed changes in cardiovascular parameters may be the result of the physical element of the stressor rather than truly reflecting psychological stress. The present study aimed to establish the validity of a psychological passive stressor; one more analogous to active tasks than those previously employed in laboratory studies. Twenty-six young, healthy adults completed a speech task in the laboratory following a resting baseline period. Twelve months later, they were invited back to the laboratory and watched the video recording of their speech. Analyses confirmed that while both tasks elicited significant SBP and DBP change (all ps < .001), only the active task was associated with HR and CO reactivity (both ps < .001), while only the passive task was associated with TPR reactivity (p = .028). Furthermore, the passive stressor was associated with a mixed hemodynamic profile, whereas the active stressor was associated with a clear myocardial profile. This study confirms that watching a video recording of oneself complete a speech task is associated with a more vascular response profile, a response associated with passive coping contexts.

Protective Factors Associated with Daily Affective Reactivity and Instability During Adolescence

The daily emotional experiences of adolescents are dynamic, vary significantly across individuals, and are crucial to their psychological adjustment, warranting a need to identify factors that promote adaptive affective responses to stressors and attenuated affective instability. The objective of this study, therefore, was to examine protective factors linked to individual differences in daily affective reactivity and instability utilizing a daily diary design in a national sample of 100 U.S. adolescents (13-17 years; 40% girls; 79% White). Adolescents completed a baseline survey and then 14 daily online surveys. Better mother-adolescent communication predicted lower negative affect reactivity, whereas greater use of problem-focused coping strategies predicted higher positive affect reactivity. Greater trait resilience and instrumental support seeking predicted lower negative affect instability. Conversely, more emotional support seeking predicted higher negative affect instability. No factors were associated with positive affect instability, and father-adolescent communication was unrelated to daily affective reactivity and instability. The findings implicate specific protective factors associated with distinct aspects of affective reactivity and instability.

Circulating insulin-like growth factor I modulates mood and is a biomarker of vulnerability to stress: from mouse to man

Individual susceptibility to anxiety disorders after maladaptive responses to stress is not well understood. We now report that while exploring stress responses in mice after traumatic brain injury (TBI), a condition associated to stress susceptibility, we observed that the anxiogenic effects of either TBI or exposure to life-threatening experiences (predator) were blocked when both stressors were combined. Because TBI increases the entrance into the brain of serum insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I), a known modulator of anxiety with a wide range of concentrations in the human population, we then determined whether circulating IGF-I is related to anxiety measures. In mice, anxiety-like responses to predator were inversely related to circulating IGF-I levels. Other indicators of mood regulation such as sensitivity to dexamethasone suppression and expression levels of blood and brain FK506 binding protein 5 (FKBP5), a co-chaperone of the glucocorticoid receptor that regulates its activity, were also associated to circulating IGF-I. Indeed, brain FKBP5 expression in mice was stimulated by IGF-I. In addition, we observed in a large human cohort (n = 2686) a significant relationship between plasma IGF-I and exposure to recent stressful life events, while FKBP5 expression in blood cells was significantly associated to plasma IGF-I levels. Collectively, these data indicate that circulating IGF-I appears to be involved in mood homeostasis across different species. Furthermore, the data in mice allow us to indicate that IGF-I may be acting at least in part by modulating FKBP5 expression.

Cumulative risk exposure moderates the association between parasympathetic reactivity and inhibitory control in preschool-age children

A child's cumulative risk for early exposure to stress has been linked to alterations of self-regulation outcomes, including neurobiological correlates of inhibitory control (IC). We examined whether children's ability to engage the parasympathetic nervous system impacts how risk affects IC. Children ages 3-5 years completed two laboratory measures of IC while respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was measured, indexing parasympathetic activity. Children with greater risk demonstrated lower IC; risk also moderated associations between RSA reactivity and IC. For children with less risk, greater RSA withdrawal during IC tasks was associated with better IC. In contrast, greater risk was associated with poor IC, regardless of RSA withdrawal. Effects of risk were more pronounced for cumulative than individual measures. Results suggest that cumulative risk exposure disrupts connectivity between physiological and behavioral components of self-regulation in early childhood. Parasympathetic withdrawal to cognitive tasks may be less relevant for performance in developmental samples experiencing greater life stress.

Character strengths, social anxiety, and physiological stress reactivity

In this paper, the effects of character strengths on the physiological reactivity to social anxiety induced by the Trier Social Stress Task were reported. On the basis of their scores in the Chinese Virtues Questionnaire, 30 college students were assigned to either high- (n = 15) or low-character-strength (n = 15) groups. Their psychological stress and physiological data across three laboratory stages (namely, baseline, stress exposure, and post-stress) were collected. Results indicated that individuals with high character strengths exhibited rapid cardiovascular recovery from baseline to post-stress even if high- and low-character-strength groups showed similar patterns of cardiovascular arousal in response to the stress at baseline and stress exposure. These results prove that character strengths are stress-defense factors that allow for psychological and physiological adaptation to stress.

The effect of resilience on task persistence and performance during repeated exposure to heat pain

The Pain Resilience Scale was recently developed to assess dimensions of resilience critical to pain-related adaptation and was found to predict experimental pain sensitivity in a pain-free population. Pain resilience has also been theoretically linked to behavioral persistence despite pain. To date, however, this hypothesis has not been experimentally tested. To address this gap in the literature, in the current study 105 healthy young adults underwent a baseline administration of the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT), a stressful mental arithmetic task, delivered with somatosensory distraction (i.e. detection of warm and cool thresholds), and finally simultaneous administration of the PASAT and a series of five heat pain threshold assessments. Results of hierarchical multiple linear regressions indicated that, after controlling for scores on a baseline PASAT and pain sensitivity, pain resilience was positively related to task persistence, B = 0.12, p = 0.04, and task performance, B = 0.14, p = 0.04, on the PASAT. These findings provide novel support for the relationship between pain resilience and behavioral perseverance.

The impact of resilience on psychological outcomes in women with threatened premature labor and spouses: a cross-sectional study in Southwest China

Background

Threatened premature labor (TPL) is a severe obstetric complication which affects the mental and physical health of both the mother and fetus. Family resilience may have protective role against psychological distress in women experiencing these pregnancy complications. There may be resilience related risk factors in TPL women, and interplays may exist among psychological variables and within couples. This study aims to examine psychological outcomes influenced by different levels of resilience, and explore psychological interactions in TPL women, spouses, and between women and spouses.

Methods

Six validated questionnaires were used to measure the psychological outcomes (Connor-Davidson resilience scale CD-RISC, Edinburgh postnatal depression scale EPDS, positive and negative affect scale PANAS, pregnancy pressure scale PPS, simplified coping style questionnaire SCSQ, social support rating scale SSRS) in 126 TPL women hospitalized in three tertiary hospitals and 104 spouses in Southwest China.

Results

Low resilient women had significantly more complicated placenta praevia, longer pediatric observation, more pressure than high resilient women. They also had significantly less active coping and positive affect, more negative affect and depression compared to high resilient women and their spouses. Although the socio-demographic characteristics of both TPL women and spouses and psychometric parameters of spouses had no significant differences, the prevalence rates of depression in spouses were notable. Compared with spouses, TPL women had a more complex interaction among these psychometric factors, with women’s resilience negatively associated with their partners’ negative affect, and their pressure positively correlated with pressure and negative affect of spouses.

Conclusions

Pregnancy complicated with placenta praevia and pediatric observation may be risk factors for resilience of women with TPL. Maternal resilience has an important impact on the psychological outcomes in TPL women. A screening for resilience, depression and other psychological outcomes in couples with TPL and early psychological intervention of low resilient couples may be appropriate to promote resilience and well-being of these families.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12955-017-0603-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.