Abstract
Research suggests that lower respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is associated with greater aversive responding. One physiological indicator of aversive responding is startle potentiation. While a few studies have demonstrated an inverse association between RSA and startle potentiation, no study to date has distinguished whether this relation is similar for predictable versus unpredictable aversive stimuli. This is an important distinction, given that degree of predictability has been shown to be an important determinant of aversive responding. The present study examined whether resting RSA was associated with startle eye blink responding during predictable and unpredictable threat of electric shock. Resting RSA was collected during a 6-min seated baseline phase at the beginning of the experimental session. Participants then completed a computerized startle task in which predictable and unpredictable shocks were administered. Results indicated that lower resting RSA was associated with greater startle potentiation during unpredictable threat, but not during predictable threat. These findings are consistent with a growing body of literature suggesting that individual differences in RSA are associated with aversive responding, and extend previous work by suggesting that RSA may be more robustly associated with a heightened sensitivity to unpredictable threat. This pattern of results may have implications for the understanding of pathological anxiety, given that individuals with anxiety disorders typically exhibit low RSA and heightened responding during unpredictable threat.
References
(2007). The many metrices of cardiac chronotrophy: A pragmatic primer and a brief comparison of metrics. Biological Psychology, 74, 243–262.
(2011). Phasic and sustained fear in humans elicits distinct patterns of brain activity. Neuroimage, 1, 389–400.
. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
(2000). Unraveling the mysteries of anxiety and its disorders from the perspective of emotion theory. American Psychologist, 55, 1247–1263.
(2001). Vagal tone, development, and Gray’s motivational theory: Toward an integrated model of autonomic nervous system functioning in psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 13, 183–214.
(1997). Heart rate variability: Origins, methods, and interpretive caveats. Psychophysiology, 34, 623–648.
(1998). Anxiety and cardiovascular reactivity: The basal forebrain cholinergic link. Behavioural Brain Research, 94, 225–248.
(2010). Heart rate variability (HRV) in adolescent females with anxiety disorders and major depressive disorder. Acta Paediatrica, 99, 604–611.
(2005). Committee report: Guidelines for human startle eyeblink electromyographic studies. Psychophysiology, 42, 1–15.
(1990). Genetic influences on respiratory sinus arrhythmia across different task conditions. Acta Geneticae Medicae Gemellologiae, 39, 181–191.
(2005). Self-implication and heart rate variability during simulated exposure to flight-related stimuli. Biological Psychology, 70, 182–187.
(1999). Affect and the startle reflex. In , Startle modification: Implication for neuroscience, cognitive science, and clinical science. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
(2006). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia, emotion, and emotion regulation during social interaction. Psychophysiology, 43, 612–622.
(2000). Change in heart rate and heart rate variability during treatment for depression in patients with coronary heart disease. Psychosomatic Medicine, 62, 639–647.
(1996). Is respiratory sinus arrhythmia a good index of cardiac vagal tone in exercise? Journal of Applied Physiology, 81, 556–564.
(1993). When do individual differences matter? A paradoxical theory of personality coherence. Psychological Inquiry, 4, 247–271.
(2000). Autonomic dysregulation in panic disorder and in post-traumatic stress disorder: Application of power spectrum analysis of heart rate variability at rest and in response to recollection of trauma or panic attacks. Psychiatry Research, 96, 1–13.
(2009). The strong situation hypothesis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13, 62–72.
(1995). Predicted versus unpredicted panic attacks: Acute versus general distress. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 104, 214–223.
(1998). Are different parts of the extended amygdala involved in fear versus anxiety? Biological Psychiatry, 44, 1239–1247.
(2006). Neural systems involved in fear and anxiety measured with fear-potentiated startle. American Psychologist, 61, 741–756.
(2001). The amygdala: Vigilance and emotion. Molecular Psychiatry, 6, 12–34.
(2007). Methodological issues in the quantification of respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Biological Psychology, 74, 286–294.
(1992). Uncontrollability and unpredictability in post-traumatic stress disorder: An animal model. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 218–238.
(2007). An autonomic flexibility-neurovisceral integration model of anxiety and cardiac vagal tone. Biological Psychology, 74, 185–199.
(1998). Anxiety and autonomic flexibility: A cardiovascular approach. Biological Psychology, 49, 303–323.
(2007). Comparison of time and frequency domain measures of RSA in ambulatory recordings. Psychophysiology, 44, 203–215.
(2004). Anxious responses to predictable and unpredictable aversive events. Behavioral Neuroscience, 118, 916–924.
(2006). The benzodiazepine alprazolam dissociates contextual fear from cued fear in humans as assessed by fear-potentiated startle. Biological Psychiatry, 60, 760–766.
(2008). Increased anxiety during anticipation of unpredictable but not predictable aversive stimuli as a psychophysiologic marker of panic disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 16, 898–904.
(2009). Increased anxiety during anticipation of unpredictable aversive stimuli in posttraumatic stress disorder but not in generalized anxiety disorder. Biological Psychiatry, 66, 47–53.
(2011). Acute hydrocortisone treatment increases anxiety but not fear in healthy volunteers: A fear-potentiated startle study. Biological Psychiatry, 69, 549–555.
(1990). Prediction of tonic parasympathetic cardiac control using respiratory sinus arrhythmia: The need for respiratory control. Psychophysiology, 28, 201–216.
(2007). Toward understanding respiratory sinus arrhythmia: Relations to cardiac vagal tone, evolution and biobehavioral functions. Biological Psychology, 74, 263–285.
(2005). The worried mind: Autonomic and prefrontal activation during worrying. Emotion, 5, 464–475.
(2002). Contribution of tonic vagal modulation of heart rate, central respiratory drive, respiration depth, and respiratory frequency to respiratory sinus arrhythmia during mental stress and physical exercise. Psychophysiology, 39, 427–436.
(2003). Reduced heart rate variability in chronic alcohol abuse: Relationship with negative mood, chronic thought suppression, and compulsive drinking. Biological Psychiatry, 54, 1427–1436.
(2002). Heart rate variability is inversely related to cortisol reactivity during cognitive stress. Psychosomatic Medicine, 64, 289.
(2003). Attentional and physiological characteristics of patients with dental anxiety. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 17, 75–87.
(2009). Altered resting psychophysiology and startle response in Croatian combat veterans with PTSD. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 71, 264–268.
(2000). The relationship of respiratory sinus arrhythmia to the co-activation of autonomic and facial responses during the Rorschach test. Psychophysiology, 37, 242–250.
(1995). The emotion probe: Studies of motivation and attention. American Psychologist, 50, 372–385.
(1993). Looking at pictures: Affective, facial, visceral, and behavioral reactions. Psychophysiology, 30, 261–273.
(2011). Statistical strategies to quantify respiratory sinus arrhythmia: Are commonly used metrics equivalent? Biological Psychology, 89, 349–364.
(2006). The strong situation: A potential impediment to studying the psychobiology and pharmacology of anxiety disorders. Biological Psychology, 72, 265–270.
(1989). Designs to balance the effect of order of presentation and first-order carry-over effects in hall tests. Journal of Sensory Studies, 4, 129–148.
(2009). Measures of emotion: A review. Cognition and Emotion, 23, 209–237.
(2009). Individual differences in fear- potentiated startle as a function of resting heart rate variability: Implications for panic disorder. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 71, 109–117.
(2006). A contemporary learning theory perspective on the etiology of anxiety disorders: It’s not what you thought it was. American Psychologist, 61, 10–26.
(1977). The interaction of person and situation. In , Personality at the crossroads: Current issues in interactional psychology (pp. 333–352). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2009). Alcohol selectively reduces anxiety but not fear: Startle response during unpredictable vs. predictable threat. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118, 335–347.
(2011). Does intolerance of uncertainty predict anticipatory startle responses to uncertain threat? International Journal of Psychophysiology, 81, 107–115.
(1971). The assessment and analysis of handedness: The Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia, 9, 97–113.
(2003). Fear-potentiated startle and posttraumatic stress symptoms in urban police officers. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 16, 471–479.
(1995). Orienting in a defensive world: Mammalian modifications of our evolutionary heritage: A polyvagal theory. Psychophysiology, 32, 301–318.
(2001). The polyvagal theory: Phylogenetic substrates of a social nervous system. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42, 123–146.
(2003). Social engagement and attachment: A phylogenetic perspective. Roots of mental illness in children. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1008, 31–47.
(2007). The polyvagal perspective. Biological Psychology, 74, 116–143.
(1990). Analyses of periodic processes in psychophysiological research. In , Principles of psychophysiology: Physical, social, and inferential elements (pp. 708–753). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
(1994). Vagal tone and the physiological regulation of emotion. In , Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. Boston, MA: Blackwell.
(1996). Infant regulation of the vagal “brake” predicts child behavior problems: A psychobiological model of social behavior. Development and Psychopathology, 29, 697–712.
(1987). The detectability, discrimability, and perceived magnitude of painful electrical shock. Perception & Psychophysics, 42, 257–268.
(2003). The rhythm of the heart in the blink of an eye: Emotion-modulated startle magnitude covaries with heart rate variability. Psychophysiology, 40, 306–313.
(2012). Assessing fear and anxiety in humans using the threat of predictable and unpredictable aversive events (the NPU-threat test). Nature Protocols, 7, 527–532.
(1994). Cardiac vagal tone and sustained attention in school-age children. Psychophysiology, 31, 17–22.
(2007). Resilience and vagal tone predict cardiac recovery from acute psychological stress. Stress, 10, 374–386.
(2000). A model of neurovisceral integration in emotion regulation and dysregulation. Journal of Affective Disorders, 61, 201–216.
(2009). Claude Bernard and the heart-brain connection: Further elaboration of a model of neurovisceral integration. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 33, 81–88.
(1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS Scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063–1070.
(1994). Relationship between age and heart rate variability in supine and standing postures: A study of spectral analysis of heart rate. Pediatric Cardiology, 15, 14–20.
