Psychosomatic response to acute emotional stress in healthy students

Abstract

The multidimensionality of the stress response has shown the complexity of this phenomenon and therefore the impossibility of finding a unique biomarker among the physiological variables related to stress. An experimental study was designed and performed to guarantee the correct synchronous and concurrent measure of psychometric tests, biochemical variables and physiological features related to acute emotional stress. The population studied corresponds to a group of 120 university students between 20 and 30 years of age, with healthy habits and without a diagnosis of chronic or psychiatric illnesses. Following the protocol of the experimental pilot, each participant reached a relaxing state and a stress state in two sessions of measurement for equivalent periods. Both states are correctly achieved evidenced by the psychometric test results and the biochemical variables. A Stress Reference Scale is proposed based on these two sets of variables. Then, aiming for a non-invasive and continuous approach, the Acute Stress Model correlated to the previous scale is also proposed, supported only by physiological signals. Preliminary results support the feasibility of measuring/quantifying the stress level. Although the results are limited to the population and stimulus type, the procedure and methodological analysis used for the assessment of acute stress in young people can be extrapolated to other populations and types of stress.

Assessing effectiveness of heart rate variability biofeedback to mitigate mental health symptoms: a pilot study

“…The pulse arrival time, which is an index that varies inversely with blood pressure, showed a decrease during the stress-inducing task when compared to baseline and recovery measurements. This pattern is in accordance with previous studies that demonstrated this reactivity in healthy students during a similar protocol for stress elicitation ( Armañac et al, 2019 ; García Pagès et al, 2023 ). Concerning the skin temperature, no differences were observed after the intervention.…”

“…We hypothesize that use of subjective measures and single-objective indices limits the understanding of the stress response; hence, a multimodal approach is being proposed in the current study. Indices derived from electrocardiogram (ECG), EDA, peripheral skin temperature and respiration collectively may provide a more comprehensive information on physiological behavior and stress response ( Garzón-Rey, 2017 ; Arza et al, 2018 ; García Pagès et al, 2023 ). Our research group has suggested combined models that include a set of electrophysiological variables, which were constructed from statistical models based on the usual clinical psychological assessment (self-reported questionnaires), thus providing a more robust estimation ( Garzón-Rey et al, 2017 ; Aguiló Mir et al, 2021 ).…”