High Vagal Tone and Rapid Extinction Learning as Potential Transdiagnostic Protective Factors Following Childhood Violence Exposure

Childhood exposure to violence is strongly associated with psychopathology. High resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) has been found to protect against psychopathology in children who have experienced adversity. High RSA may protect against psychopathology by facilitating fear extinction learning, allowing individuals to more appropriately regulate autonomic responses to learned threat and safety cues. In the present study, 165 youth (79 female, ages 9-17; 86 exposed to violence) completed assessments of violence exposure, RSA, psychopathology, and a fear extinction learning task; 134 participants returned and completed psychopathology assessments two years later. Resting RSA moderated the association of violence exposure with PTSD symptoms and transdiagnostic psychopathology (p-factor) at follow-up, such that the association was weaker among youth with higher RSA. Higher skin conductance responses (SCR) when viewing the stimulus associated with an aversive noise (CS+) as well as when viewing the stimulus that was unassociated with the aversive noise (CS-) during extinction learning predicted higher internalizing symptoms and p-factor at follow-up. These findings suggest that higher RSA may protect against the onset of psychopathology among children exposed to violence. Moreover, our findings suggest that in addition to difficulty extinguishing learned threat responses, elevated autonomic responses to safety cues may contribute to psychopathology.