Dataset Information

Vagal Flexibility Mediates the Association Between Resting Vagal Activity and Cognitive Performance Stability Across Varying Socioemotional Demands.

ABSTRACT: Vagal flexibility describes the ability to modulate cardiac vagal responses to fit a dynamic range of challenges. Extant theory on vagal function implies that vagal flexibility is a mediating mechanism through which resting vagal activity, a putative individual difference related to self-regulation, affects adaptive behavior and cognition. Nevertheless, little research has directly tested this hypothesis, thereby leaving fundamental mechanisms of vagal function and adaptability unclear. To this end, 47 healthy subjects completed a 5 min baseline followed by Stroop tasks combined with concurrent auditory distractors. There were four different Stroop task conditions that varied the social and emotional content of the auditory distractors. Electrocardiogram was continuously recorded to assess vagal responses to each condition as heart rate variability [root mean square of successive differences (RMSSDs)] reactivity. Vagal flexibility significantly mediated the association between resting vagal activity and stability of inhibition performance (Stroop interference) scores. In particular, higher resting RMSSD was related to higher standard deviation of RMSSD reactivity scores, reflecting greater differences in RMSSD reactivity between distractor conditions (i.e., greater vagal flexibility). Greater vagal flexibility was in turn related to more stability in Stroop interference across the same conditions. The mean of RMSSD reactivity scores across conditions was not significantly related to resting RMSSD or stability in Stroop performance, and mean RMSSD reactivity did not mediate relations between resting RMSSD and stability in Stroop performance. Overall, findings suggest that vagal flexibility may promote the effects of resting vagal activity on stabilizing cognitive inhibition in the face of environmental perturbations.

SUBMITTER: Spangler DP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7509204 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Vagal Flexibility Mediates the Association Between Resting Vagal Activity and Cognitive Performance Stability Across Varying Socioemotional Demands.

Spangler Derek P DP McGinley Jared J JJ

Frontiers in psychology 20200909

Vagal flexibility describes the ability to modulate cardiac vagal responses to fit a dynamic range of challenges. Extant theory on vagal function implies that vagal flexibility is a mediating mechanism through which resting vagal activity, a putative individual difference related to self-regulation, affects adaptive behavior and cognition. Nevertheless, little research has directly tested this hypothesis, thereby leaving fundamental mechanisms of vagal function and adaptability unclear. To this ...[more]

PMID: 33013534

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Project description:Cognitive stability and flexibility are core functions in the successful pursuit of behavioral goals. While there is evidence for a common frontoparietal network underlying both functions and for a key role of dopamine in the modulation of flexible versus stable behavior, the exact neurocomputational mechanisms underlying those executive functions and their adaptation to environmental demands are still unclear. In this work we study the neurocomputational mechanisms underlying cue based task switching (flexibility) and distractor inhibition (stability) in a paradigm specifically designed to probe both functions. We develop a physiologically plausible, explicit model of neural networks that maintain the currently active task rule in working memory and implement the decision process. We simplify the four-choice decision network to a nonlinear drift-diffusion process that we canonically derive from a generic winner-take-all network model. By fitting our model to the behavioral data of individual subjects, we can reproduce their full behavior in terms of decisions and reaction time distributions in baseline as well as distractor inhibition and switch conditions. Furthermore, we predict the individual hemodynamic response timecourse of the rule-representing network and localize it to a frontoparietal network including the inferior frontal junction area and the intraparietal sulcus, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This refines the understanding of task-switch-related frontoparietal brain activity as reflecting attractor-like working memory representations of task rules. Finally, we estimate the subject-specific stability of the rule-representing attractor states in terms of the minimal action associated with a transition between different rule states in the phase-space of the fitted models. This stability measure correlates with switching-specific thalamocorticostriatal activation, i.e., with a system associated with flexible working memory updating and dopaminergic modulation of cognitive flexibility. These results show that stochastic dynamical systems can implement the basic computations underlying cognitive stability and flexibility and explain neurobiological bases of individual differences.

Dataset Information

Vagal Flexibility Mediates the Association Between Resting Vagal Activity and Cognitive Performance Stability Across Varying Socioemotional Demands.

Publications

Vagal Flexibility Mediates the Association Between Resting Vagal Activity and Cognitive Performance Stability Across Varying Socioemotional Demands.

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