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Anxiety and Attentional Processes: The Role of Resting Heart Rate Variability.

ABSTRACT: Individuals with high anxiety preferentially focus attention on emotional information. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays an important role in modulating both anxiety and attentional processes. Despite many studies having evaluated attentional bias in anxious people, few of them have investigated the change blindness phenomenon associated with the attentional response toward salient stimuli, considering the role of the ANS. This study aimed to examine the role of heart rate variability (HRV) in trait anxiety and top-down and bottom-up attentional processes toward emotional stimuli. Seventy-five healthy university students were divided into high (N = 39) and low (N = 36) trait anxiety groups and completed a change detection flicker task with neutral, positive, and negative stimuli. The results evidenced a different attentional pattern between people with high and low anxiety considering both the two attentional processes and the valence of the stimuli. Specifically, individuals with high anxiety showed a bias in elaborating emotional stimuli related to their salience (i.e., negative stimuli were faster elaborated than neutral and positive stimuli when top-down attentional mechanisms were involved, while slower performances were highlighted considering bottom-up attentional mechanisms in response to emotional stimuli compared to neutral stimuli). Moreover, an association between HRV, trait anxiety levels, and change blindness phenomenon was confirmed. These results underline the role of HRV as a possible predictor of the alteration of attentional mechanism in anxiety.

SUBMITTER: Forte G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8070415 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Measures of heart rate variability (and heart rate more generally) are providing powerful insights into the physiological drivers of behaviour. Resting heart rate variability (HRV) can be used as an indicator of individual differences in temperament and reactivity to physical and psychological stress. There is increasing interest in deriving such measures from free ranging wild animals, where individuals are exposed to the natural and anthropogenic stressors of life. We describe a robust, externally mounted heart rate monitor for use in wild mammals, deployed here on wild breeding adult female grey seals (Halichoerus grypus), that delivers millisecond precise measures of inter beat intervals (IBIs), allowing computation of resting HRV parameters. Based on Firstbeat™ heart rate belts, our system allows for remote, continuous recording of IBI data from over 30 individuals simultaneously at ranges of up to 200m. We assessed the accuracy of the IBI data provided by the Firstbeat™ system using concurrent IBI data derived from in-field electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings. Bland-Altmann analyses demonstrated high correspondence between the two sets of IBI data, with a mean difference of 0.87±0.16ms. We used generalized additive mixed-effects models to examine the impact of the default Firstbeat™ software artefact correction procedure upon the generation of anomalous data (flats and stairs). Artefact correction and individual activity were major causes of flats and stairs. We used simulations and models to assess the impact of these errors on estimates of resting HRV and to inform criteria for subsampling relatively error free IBI traces. These analyses allowed us to establish stringent filtering procedures to remove traces with excessive numbers of artefacts, including flats and stairs. Even with strict criteria for removing potentially erroneous data, the abundance of data yielded by the Firstbeat™ system provides the potential to extract robust estimates of resting HRV. We discuss the advantages and limitations of our system for applications beyond the study system described here.

Project description:Objectively measurable biomarkers have not been applied for suicide risk prediction. Resting heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) showed potential as trans-diagnostic markers associated with suicide. This study aimed to investigate the associations of resting HR and HRV on proximal suicide risk in patients with diverse psychiatric diagnoses. This chart review study used the medical records of psychiatric patients who visited the outpatient clinic at an academic tertiary hospital. A total of 1,461 patients with diverse psychiatric diagnoses was included in the analysis. Proximal suicide risk was measured using the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) suicidal score. Linear regression analyses with the MINI suicidal score as a dependent variable and binary logistic regression analyses with moderate-to-high suicide risk (MINI suicidal risk score ≥6) as a dependent variable were conducted to explore the effects of resting HR and HRV parameters on acute suicide risk after adjusting for age, sex, presence of major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD), severity of depression and anxiety severity. We found that 55 (34.6%) patients in the MDD group, 40 (41.7%) in the BD group and 36 (3.9%) in the others group reported moderate-to-high suicide risk. Linear regression analysis revealed that both resting HR and root-mean-square of successive difference (RMSSD) had significant associations with the MINI suicidal score (P = 0.037 with HR, P = 0.003 with RMSSD). In logistic regression, only RMSSD showed a significant association with moderate-to-high suicide risk (P = 0.098 with HR, P = 0.019 with RMSSD), which remained significant in subgroup analysis with patients who reported any suicide-related symptom (MINI suicidal score >0; n = 472; P = 0.017 with HR, P = 0.012 with RMSSD). Our study findings suggest the potential for resting HR and RMSSD as biomarkers for proximal suicide risk prediction. Further research with longitudinal evaluation is needed to confirm our study findings.

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Anxiety and Attentional Processes: The Role of Resting Heart Rate Variability.

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