Citation

Bylsma LM, Yaroslavsky I, Rottenberg J, Jennings JR, George CJ, Kiss E, Kapornai K, Halas K, Dochnal R, Lefkovics E, Benák I, Baji I, Vetró A, Kovács M. Biol. Psychol. 2015; 110: 167-174.

Affiliation

University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.07.003

PMID

26225465

Abstract

Cardiac autonomic balance (CAB) indexes the ratio of parasympathetic to sympathetic activation (Berntson et al., 2008), and is believed to reflect overall autonomic flexibility in the face of environmental challenges. However, CAB has not been examined in depression. We examined changes in CAB and other physiological variables in 179 youth with a history of juvenile onset depression (JOD) and 161 healthy controls, in response to two psychological (unsolvable puzzle, sad film) and two physical (handgrip, and forehead cold pressor) challenges. In repeated measures analyses, controls showed expected reductions in CAB for both the handgrip and unsolvable puzzle, reflecting a shift to sympathetic relative to parasympathetic activation. By contrast, JOD youth showed increased CAB from baseline for both tasks (ps<.05). No effects were found for the forehead cold pressor or sad film tasks, suggesting that CAB differences may arise under conditions requiring greater attentional control or sustained effort.

Language: en