The goal of the current study was to investigate the moderating effect of tonic respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in the relation between childhood maltreatment and depression symptoms among young adults. A total of 98 participants (70 women) aged 17-22 years completed questionnaires on childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms. RSA data were obtained during a resting condition in the laboratory.Results indicated that childhood maltreatment interacted with tonic RSA to predict depressive symptoms, even after controlling for age and body mass index (BMI) of each participant. Specifically, higher levels of childhood maltreatment were associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms, but only among young adults who exhibited lower tonic RSA. The results indicated that the association between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms depends on young adults' physiological functioning/flexibility. Findings suggest that consideration of external environmental factors in combination with internal physiological factors is critical to understand young adults' mental health.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.