TY - JOUR
T1 - Cardiac vagal control as a marker of emotion regulation in healthy adults: A review
AU - Balzarotti, Stefania
AU - Biassoni, Federica
AU - Colombo, B.
AU - Colombo, Barbara
AU - Ciceri, Maria Rita
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - In the last two decades, a growing body of theory and research has targeted the role of cardiac vagal control (CVC) in emotional responding. This research has either focused on resting CVC (also denoted as cardiac vagal tone) or phasic changes in CVC (also denoted as vagal reactivity) in response to affective stimuli. The present paper is aimed at reporting a review of the papers published between 1996 and 2016, and focused on the results of 135 papers examining cardiac vagal control as a physiological marker of emotion regulation in healthy adults. The review shows that studies have employed a wide array of methodologies and measures, often leading to conflicting results. High resting CVC has been associated with better down-regulation of negative affect, use of adaptive regulatory strategies, and more flexible emotional responding. Concerning phasic changes, research has consistently found decreased CVC in response to stress, while CVC increases have been shown to reflect either self-regulatory efforts or recovery from stress. Despite conflicting results, we conclude that existing literature supports the use of CVC as a noninvasive, objective marker of emotion regulation.
AB - In the last two decades, a growing body of theory and research has targeted the role of cardiac vagal control (CVC) in emotional responding. This research has either focused on resting CVC (also denoted as cardiac vagal tone) or phasic changes in CVC (also denoted as vagal reactivity) in response to affective stimuli. The present paper is aimed at reporting a review of the papers published between 1996 and 2016, and focused on the results of 135 papers examining cardiac vagal control as a physiological marker of emotion regulation in healthy adults. The review shows that studies have employed a wide array of methodologies and measures, often leading to conflicting results. High resting CVC has been associated with better down-regulation of negative affect, use of adaptive regulatory strategies, and more flexible emotional responding. Concerning phasic changes, research has consistently found decreased CVC in response to stress, while CVC increases have been shown to reflect either self-regulatory efforts or recovery from stress. Despite conflicting results, we conclude that existing literature supports the use of CVC as a noninvasive, objective marker of emotion regulation.
KW - Cardiac vagal control
KW - Cardiac vagal tone
KW - Emotion regulation
KW - Heart rate variability
KW - Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
KW - Neuroscience (all)
KW - Respiratory sinus arrhythmia
KW - Vagal reactivity
KW - Vagal recovery
KW - Cardiac vagal control
KW - Cardiac vagal tone
KW - Emotion regulation
KW - Heart rate variability
KW - Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology
KW - Neuroscience (all)
KW - Respiratory sinus arrhythmia
KW - Vagal reactivity
KW - Vagal recovery
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10807/115591
UR - http://www.elsevier.com/locate/biopsycho
U2 - 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.10.008
DO - 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.10.008
M3 - Article
SN - 0301-0511
VL - 130
SP - 54
EP - 66
JO - Biological Psychology
JF - Biological Psychology
ER -