The rhythm of the heart in the blink of an eye: emotion-modulated startle magnitude covaries with heart rate variability.

Emotion-modulated startle is a robust phenomenon that has been demonstrated in a wide range of experimental situations. Similarly, heart rate variability (HRV) has been associated with a diverse range of processes including affective and attentional regulation. The present study sought to examine the relationship between these two important measures of affective behavior. Ninety female participants viewed pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures while exposed to acoustic startle stimuli. The eyeblink startle was recorded both during the affective foregrounds and during intertrial intervals. HRV was assessed during a resting baseline and relationships between HRV and startle magnitudes examined. Results indicated that resting HRV was inversely related to startle magnitude during both intertrial intervals and affective foregrounds. In addition, the participants with the highest HRV showed the most differentiated emotion-modulated startle effects, whereas those with the lowest HRV, compared to those with the highest HRV, showed significantly potentiated startle to neutral foregrounds and marginally potentiated startle to pleasant foregrounds. The findings are consistent with models that posit that prefrontal cortical activity modulates subcortical motivation circuits. These results have important implications for the use of startle probe methodology and for HRV in the study of emotional regulation and dysregulation.

[1]  J. E. Skinner.  Regulation of cardiac vulnerability by the cerebral defense system. , 1985, Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

[2]  K. M. Spyer.  Neural mechanisms involved in cardiovascular control during affective behaviour , 1989, Trends in Neurosciences.

[3]  J. Saul,et al.  Beat-to-Beat Variations of Heart Rate Reflect Modulation of Cardiac Autonomic Outflow , 1990 .

[4]  S. Porges.  Autonomic regulation and attention. , 1992 .

[5]  E. Benarroch.  The central autonomic network: functional organization, dysfunction, and perspective. , 1993, Mayo Clinic proceedings.

[6]  M. Bradley,et al.  Emotion in the criminal psychopath: startle reflex modulation. , 1993, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[7]  N H Frijda,et al.  Modulation of the acoustic startle response by film-induced fear and sexual arousal. , 1994, Psychophysiology.

[8]  C. Braun,et al.  Emotional qualities of odors and their influence on the startle reflex in humans. , 1994, Psychophysiology.

[9]  M. Weinand,et al.  Quantitative analysis of the EEG in the intracarotid amobarbital procedure. I. Amplitude analysis. , 1994, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[10]  J. Gray,et al.  PERSONALITY AND AFFECTIVE MODULATION OF THE STARTLE REFLEX , 1995 .

[11]  J F Thayer,et al.  Estimation of respiratory frequency from autoregressive spectral analysis of heart period. , 1996, Biomedical sciences instrumentation.

[12]  A. Malliani,et al.  Heart rate variability. Standards of measurement, physiological interpretation, and clinical use , 1996 .

[13]  N Birbaumer,et al.  Startle reflex and emotion modulation impairment after a right amygdala lesion. , 1996, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[14]  G. Breithardt,et al.  Heart rate variability: standards of measurement, physiological interpretation and clinical use. Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology. , 1996 .

[15]  Folkert Postema,et al.  Forebrain parasympathetic control of heart activity: retrograde transneuronal viral labeling in rats. , 1997, American journal of physiology. Heart and circulatory physiology.

[16]  Younglim Lee,et al.  Roles of the Amygdala and Bed Nucleus of the Stria Terminalis in Fear and Anxiety Measured with the Acoustic Startle Reflex , 1997, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[17]  J. Cummings,et al.  Frontal-subcortical circuits: the anatomic basis of executive, social and motivated behaviors , 1997, Journal of psychopharmacology.

[18]  J. Thayer,et al.  Fitness and Gender-Related Differences in Heart Period Variability , 1998, Psychosomatic medicine.

[19]  J F Thayer,et al.  Autonomic balance revisited: panic anxiety and heart rate variability. , 1998, Journal of psychosomatic research.

[20]  A. Verberne,et al.  Cortical Modulation of theCardiovascular System , 1998, Progress in Neurobiology.

[21]  U Klose,et al.  fMRI reveals amygdala activation to human faces in social phobics , 1998, Neuroreport.

[22]  A. Verberne,et al.  Cortical modulation of the cardiovascular system. , 1998, Progress in neurobiology.

[23]  M. Bradley,et al.  Startle Modification: Affect and the Startle Reflex , 1999 .

[24]  G. J. ter Horst.  Central autonomic control of the heart, angina, and pathogenic mechanisms of post-myocardial infarction depression. , 1999, European journal of morphology.

[25]  W. Drevets.  Prefrontal Cortical‐Amygdalar Metabolism in Major Depression , 1999, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[26]  L. Parsons,et al.  Reciprocal limbic-cortical function and negative mood: converging PET findings in depression and normal sadness. , 1999, The American journal of psychiatry.

[27]  John Trinder,et al.  Affective startle modulation in clinical depression: preliminary findings , 1999, Biological Psychiatry.

[28]  A. Roberts,et al.  Inhibitory control and affective processing in the prefrontal cortex: neuropsychological studies in the common marmoset. , 2000, Cerebral cortex.

[29]  P. Lang,et al.  Fear and anxiety: animal models and human cognitive psychophysiology. , 2000, Journal of affective disorders.

[30]  Andrew W. Young,et al.  The enigma of the amygdala: on its contribution to human emotion , 2000 .

[31]  J F Thayer,et al.  Phasic heart period reactions to cued threat and nonthreat stimuli in generalized anxiety disorder. , 2000, Psychophysiology.

[32]  J. Mazziotta,et al.  Modulating emotional responses: effects of a neocortical network on the limbic system , 2000, Neuroreport.

[33]  M. Bradley,et al.  Measuring emotion: Behavior, feeling, and physiology , 2000 .

[34]  R. Lane,et al.  A model of neurovisceral integration in emotion regulation and dysregulation. , 2000, Journal of affective disorders.

[35]  D. Seo,et al.  Contralateral EEG Slowing and Amobarbital Distribution in Wada Test: An Intracarotid SPECT Study , 2000, Epilepsia.

[36]  M. Bradley,et al.  Affective reactions to briefly presented pictures. , 2001, Psychophysiology.

[37]  Michael Davis,et al.  The amygdala: vigilance and emotion , 2001, Molecular Psychiatry.

[38]  M. Weinand,et al.  Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability Changes in the Intracarotid Sodium Amobarbital Test , 2001, Epilepsia.

[39]  Julian F. Thayer,et al.  21. Activity in medial prefrontal cortex correlates with vagal component of heart rate variability during emotion , 2001 .

[40]  T. Beauchaine,et al.  Vagal tone, development, and Gray's motivational theory: Toward an integrated model of autonomic nervous system functioning in psychopathology , 2001, Development and Psychopathology.

[41]  J. Thayer,et al.  Estimating respiratory frequency from autoregressive spectral analysis of heart period. , 2002, IEEE engineering in medicine and biology magazine : the quarterly magazine of the Engineering in Medicine & Biology Society.

[42]  J. Houtveen,et al.  Contribution of tonic vagal modulation of heart rate, central respiratory drive, respiratory depth, and respiratory frequency to respiratory sinus arrhythmia during mental stress and physical exercise. , 2002, Psychophysiology.

[43]  R. Lane,et al.  Perseverative Thinking and Health: Neurovisceral Concomitants , 2002 .

[44]  R. Davidson.  Anxiety and affective style: role of prefrontal cortex and amygdala , 2002, Biological Psychiatry.

[45]  J. Thayer,et al.  Stop that! Inhibition, sensitization, and their neurovisceral concomitants. , 2002, Scandinavian journal of psychology.

[46]  Julian F Thayer,et al.  Attentional and physiological characteristics of patients with dental anxiety. , 2003, Journal of anxiety disorders.

[47]  Julian F. Thayer,et al.  Accentuated antagonism in the control of human heart rate , 2000, Clinical Autonomic Research.