Cardiac sympathetic activation and parasympathetic withdrawal during psychosocial stress exposure in 6‐month‐old infants

Autor: Stefan M. Schulz, Michelle Bosquet Enlow, Rosalind J. Wright, Thomas Ritz, David Rosenfield
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Sympathetic Nervous System
Cognitive Neuroscience
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Article
050105 experimental psychology
Electrocardiography
03 medical and health sciences
Child Development
0302 clinical medicine
Developmental Neuroscience
Heart Rate
Parasympathetic Nervous System
Internal medicine
Heart rate
Hyperventilation
medicine
Humans
Respiratory inductance plethysmography
Tonic (music)
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Vagal tone
Biological Psychiatry
Social stress
Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
General Neuroscience
05 social sciences
Infant
Mother-Child Relations
Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia
Distress
Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
Social Perception
Neurology
Cardiology
Female
medicine.symptom
Psychology
Facial Recognition
Stress
Psychological

030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Respiratory minute volume
Zdroj: Psychophysiology
ISSN: 1469-8986
0048-5772
DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13673
Popis: Infant autonomic reactivity to stress is a potential predictor of later life health complications, but research has not sufficiently examined sympathetic activity, controlled for effects of physical activity and respiration, or studied associations among autonomic adjustments, cardiac activity, and affect in infants. We studied 278 infants during the repeated Still-Face Paradigm, a standardized stressor, while monitoring cardiac activity (ECG) and respiratory pattern (respiratory inductance plethysmography). Video ratings of physical activity and affect were also performed. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and T-wave amplitude (TWA) served as noninvasive indicators of cardiac parasympathetic and sympathetic activity, respectively. Responses were compared between infants who completed two still-face exposures and those who terminated after one exposure due to visible distress. Findings, controlled for physical activity, showed robust reductions in respiration-adjusted RSA and TWA, with slower return to baseline for TWA. Infants completing only one still-face trial showed more pronounced autonomic changes and less recovery from stress. They also showed elevated minute ventilation, suggesting hyperventilation. Both reductions in adjusted RSA and TWA contributed equally to heart rate changes and were associated with higher negative and lower positive affect. These associations were more robust in the group of distressed infants unable to complete both still-face trials. Thus, cardiac sympathetic activation and parasympathetic withdrawal are part of the infant stress response, beyond associated physical activity and changes in respiration. Their association with cardiac chronotropy and affect increases as infants’ distress level increases. This excess reactivity to social stress should be examined as a predictor of future cardiovascular disease.
Databáze: OpenAIRE