(PS11-81) Investigating the Role of Heart Rate Variability in Cognitive-affective Vulnerabilities

Introduction: Transdiagnostic factors are valuable as they help to identify and treat core processes that cut across mental health difficulties. In efforts to develop more holistic mind-body interventions, there has been increased attention toward identifying biological processes that function in a similar transdiagnostic fashion. One promising candidate is heart rate variability (HRV), a physiological correlate of self-regulation. Evidence showing non-significant differences between HRV and behavioral and emotional regulatory measures suggests HRV is best conceptualized as a general marker of self-regulation, supporting its broader transdiagnostic utility. From this perspective, we expect HRV to exhibit cross relations with other cognitive-affective transdiagnostic factors often implicated in self-regulation. To test this theory, the current project examined relations between HRV and three transdiagnostic variables: anxiety sensitivity (AS), distress intolerance (DI), and difficulties in emotion regulation (ER). We hypothesized that HRV would be significantly, inversely correlated with AS, DI, and difficulties in ER.

Method: We recruited three gender and ethnically/racially diverse samples: Sample 1: 50 adults who smoked cigarettes daily (68% male; Mage=34.1; MCPD=14.3; 56% White; 72% Non-Hispanic); Sample 2: 30 adult females who denied smoking or psychiatric history (Mage=27.6; 37.3% Asian; 31.3% White; 73.1% Non-Hispanic); and Sample 3: 62 undergraduate female students (Mage=19.1; 40.3% Asian; 25.8% White; 79% Non-Hispanic). Participants completed the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3 (ASI), the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and the Distress Tolerance Scale (reverse scored to reflect greater DI). Resting state HRV reflected the average respiratory sinus arrhythmia value collected over a 5-minute baseline recording.

Results: Bi-variate correlations showed significant correlations between DI and ASI total scores across the samples (rs= .44 -.63, all ps≤ .015). In Samples 1 and 3, DERS and DI total scores were also significantly correlated (rs= 0.46 -0.74; ps < .001). In Sample 2, only data for the DERS impulse and strategies subscales were available, both of which showed non-significant correlations with DI and ASI (rs= .015 -.038, all ps> .05). Finally, HRV showed non-significant associations with DI, ASI, or DERS scores across the samples, with the largest association consistent with a medium-sized effect (rs= 0.02 -0.32 all ps> .05).

Discussion: In contrast to our hypothesis, HRV showed non-significant associations, ranging from small to intermediary in strength, with AS, DI, or difficulties in ER across the three samples. These findings contrast with prior work showing HRV’s significant association with other cognitive-affective self-regulatory processes. Ongoing investigations examining HRV’s relations in clinical and non-clinical samples with varying severities of AS, DI, and ER are needed. Research in this vein can help inform prior theoretical conceptualization of HRV as a general marker of self-regulation and its broader clinical utility as a biological transdiagnostic mechanism.