Parental Hypertension, Affect, and Cardiovascular Response to Cognitive Challenge

Abstract

This investigation examined the cardiovascular and affective reactions of offspring of hypertensive and normotensive parents on exposure of subjects to a frustrating cognitive task. Subjects were 44 normotensive, male undergraduate volunteers, 22 with and 22 without a parental history of hypertension. Heart rate (HR) and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP) measurements were recorded under resting (baseline) conditions and during subjects' performance of a 3-min mental arithmetic task. Subjects were also administered state forms of the State-Trait Anxiety and Anger Inventories following baseline measurements and immediately after the experimental task. Results indicated that relative to sons of normotensive parents, offspring of hypertensives showed significantly greater HR and DBP elevations during mental arithmetic.However, neither task performance nor task-related changes on the state measures of anxiety and anger varied reliably with differences in parental status. When subjects were divided into groups of high-and low-affect (i.e., anxiety, anger) responders, the HR reactions of persons having hypertensive and normotensive parents were found to differ significantly only among subjects who reported experiencing the most appreciable anxiety-and to a lesser extent, angerwhen performing the mental arithmetic task. This finding suggests that persons at familial risk for hypertension possess a heightened cardiovascular response "potential" which is expressed, in part, in relation to concomitant affective experiences of the individual.

Cardiovascular haemodynamic response to repeated mental stress in normotensive subjects at genetic risk of hypertension: evidence of enhanced reactivity, blunted adaptation, and delayed recovery

“…Previous differences in cardiovascular reactivity (CVR) and/ or adaptation between N+PH and N-PH subjects have been found using a mental arithmetic (MA) stressor. 10,17,19,24,28 Heart rate and blood pressure reactivity to MA predicted future hypertension in normotensive adolescents with a hypertensive parent 1-4 years later, 28 and CVR to MA was shown to be similar in identical and fraternal male twins 29 and between parent and child. 30 MA is an active stressor, which distinguishes between N+PH and N-PH white male subjects better than a passive stressor such as the cold pressor test.…”

“…5 Normotensive children of hypertensives also show persistent elevation of SBP during recovery from exercise, 6,7 suggestive of enhanced cardiovascular response to physical stress. Several studies have also shown delayed blood pressure recovery [8][9][10][11][12][13][14] as well as increased reactivity 10,[15][16][17][18][19] to (mental) laboratory stress in normotensive offspring of hypertensives.…”

“…Aerobically trained organisms have higher HR, epinephrine, and norepinephrine levels in response to initial mental stress 20,21 with superior cardiovascular adaptation over repeated stress, 22 while borderline hypertensives and N+PH also show an increase in reactivity to initial mental stress. [15][16][17][18]23 Also, several studies have shown a lack of cardiovascular adaptation to repeated mental stress in N+PH vs N-PH subjects. 10,16,18,24 This delayed recovery from stress in genetically prone persons might be an early marker in the prehypertensive stage of the disease.…”

Forearm blood flow responses of offspring of hypertensives to an extended stress task.

“…Jorgensen and Houston 30 found that offspring of hypertensive parents reported greater increases in subjective anxiety after participating in a shock avoidance task than offspring of normotensive parents. However, Manuck et al 13 found no group differences in affective response to a mental arithmetic task that elicited significant differences in heart rate and diastolic blood pressure responses. It is possible that differences in affective reactivity between individuals with and without a family history of hypertension are elicited only by fairly intense stressors (e.g., shock avoidance).…”

Hostility: Individual differences in cognitive processes.

“…Investigations of the relationship between individual differences in hostility and physiological reactivity, however, have revealed mixed results. While some studies have revealed a relationship between blood pressure reactivity and scores on various measures of hostility (e.g., Dembroski, MacDougall, Shields, Petitto, & Lushene, 1978;Diamond, Schneiderman, Schwartz, Smith, Voip, & Pasin, 1984;Jorgensen & Houston, 1986;Steptoe, Melville, & Ross, 1984), others have obtained negative findings (e.g., Hastrup, Kraemer, Hotchkiss, & Johnson, 1986;Manuck, Proietti, Rader, & Polefrone, 1985). Thus, a general reactivity mechanism has not been consistently supported.…”