Resting heart rate variability and the startle reflex to briefly presented affective pictures

Ruiz-Padial, Elisabeth; Thayer, Julian F.

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.10.005

Cited by 17 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 33 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Thus, low resting HRV and elevated startle responses to safe conditions may both precede self‐reports and clinical diagnosis of anxiety disorders. In the present study, consistent with previous reports, we show that low resting HRV and elevated startle responses to safe conditions are associated with each other (Melzig et al, ; Pappens et al, ; Ruiz‐Padial et al, ; Ruiz‐Padial & Thayer, ). However, in the present study, we were able to show that low resting HRV was associated with both conditioned fear inhibition and fear extinction.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Higher vagal tone is associated with a general higher ability to flexibly adapt to environmental demands (Lyonfields, Borkovec, & Thayer, 1995;Thayer et al, 2012) as well as specifically with more successful inhibition in the presence of emotional stimuli (Krypotos, Jahfari, van Ast, Kindt, & Forstmann, 2011). Importantly, it has been shown repeatedly that persons with low resting HRV have difficulty in adjusting their response to safety signals in a context where threat stimuli might occur (Melzig, Weike, Hamm, & Thayer, 2009;Pappens et al, 2014;Park, Vasey, van Bavel, & Thayer, 2013;Ruiz-Padial, Sollers, Vila, & Thayer, 2003;Ruiz-Padial & Thayer, 2014). The present study extends this previous work by explicitly examining conditioned fear inhibition (the inhibitory effect of a learned safety signal: AX1 vs. AB) as well as fear extinction (new safety learning: AX1 vs. AX2) by using a conditional discrimination paradigm.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Resting heart rate variability is associated with inhibition of conditioned fear

et al. 2015

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Startle blink as well as skin conductance responses (SCR) are widely used indices of learning processes associated with fear conditioning and extinction. During safety learning, the amygdala is under top-down inhibitory control by the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The capacity of the PFC to exert inhibitory control over subcortical brain structures may be indexed by resting state vagally mediated heart rate variability (HRV). The present study investigated the association of resting HRV with startle blink and SCR during conditioned fear inhibition and extinction. Participants first learned to discriminate a threat cue (A) signaling an aversive unconditioned stimulus from a safety signal (B), which were each presented together with a third stimulus X (AX+/BX-). Then, both the threat and safety signal were presented together (AB) to test whether the presence of the learned safety signal inhibits the fear response to the danger signal. Finally, AX was presented without reinforcement (AX-) to investigate fear extinction. Higher HRV was associated with pronounced fear inhibition and fear extinction. Resting HRV levels were associated with fear extinction as indexed by startle blink potentiation but not SCR, which presumably reflect more cognitive aspects of learning. Resting HRV may reflect the capacity of the prefrontal cortex to inhibit subcortical fear responses in the presence of safety or when former threat cues are presented in the absence of threat.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Resting heart rate variability is associated with inhibition of conditioned fear

et al. 2015

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…There is a growing literature suggesting that low resting HRV and related psychopathological states are associated with undifferentiated threat responses to a wide range of conditions and situations [Melzig et al, 2009;Ruiz-Padial and Thayer, 2014;Wendt et al, 2015]. Thus, the present findings of widespread connectivity in PTSD may reflect r Thome et al r r 36 r the neural concomitants of a response pattern, reflecting difficulties in differentiating between threat and safety contexts, which has been observed in other studies [e.g., see Steiger et al, 2015].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 67%

Desynchronization of autonomic response and central autonomic network connectivity in posttraumatic stress disorder

Thome

Densmore

Frewen

et al. 2016

Human Brain Mapping

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, Butler et al (2006) reported that greater resting HRV was associated with successful emotion regulation via either reappraisal or suppression. Ruiz-Padial and colleagues also reported that higher resting HRV was associated with more context appropriate emotion-modulated startle responses (Ruiz-Padial et al, 2003; Ruiz-Padial and Thayer, 2014). In addition, Williams et al (2015) demonstrated that greater resting HRV was associated with fewer difficulties with the regulation of everyday emotions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Heart rate variability is associated with amygdala functional connectivity with MPFC across younger and older adults

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The ability to regulate emotion is crucial to promote well-being. Evidence suggests that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and adjacent anterior cingulate (ACC) modulate amygdala activity during emotion regulation. Yet less is known about whether the amygdala-mPFC circuit is linked with regulation of the autonomic nervous system and whether the relationship differs across the adult lifespan. The current study tested the hypothesis that heart rate variability (HRV) reflects the strength of mPFC-amygdala interaction across younger and older adults. We recorded participants’ heart rates at baseline and examined whether baseline HRV was associated with amygdala-mPFC functional connectivity during rest. We found that higher HRV was associated with stronger functional connectivity between the amygdala and the mPFC during rest across younger and older adults. In addition to this age-invariant pattern, there was an age-related change, such that greater HRV was linked with stronger functional connectivity between amygdala and ventrolateral PFC (vlPFC) in younger than in older adults. These results are in line with past evidence that vlPFC is involved in emotion regulation especially in younger adults. Taken together, our results support the neurovisceral integration model and suggest that higher heart rate variability is associated with neural mechanisms that support successful emotional regulation across the adult lifespan.

show abstract

Resting heart rate variability and the startle reflex to briefly presented affective pictures

Cited by 17 publications

References 33 publications

Resting heart rate variability is associated with inhibition of conditioned fear

Resting heart rate variability is associated with inhibition of conditioned fear

Desynchronization of autonomic response and central autonomic network connectivity in posttraumatic stress disorder

Heart rate variability is associated with amygdala functional connectivity with MPFC across younger and older adults

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About