(PS1-39) Cognitive Reappraisal Is Associated with Respiration Rate in Highly Anxious and Depressed Individuals

Abstract Text: Studying the relations between cardiorespiratory regulation and psychological processes is essential because maladaptive cardiovascular reactivity is linked to poorer physical and mental health outcomes (Thayer et al., 2012; Koch et al., 2019). The current study builds upon prior work in our lab (Fisher, Howe & Zong, 2022) by associating autonomic dynamic regulatory networks with self-reported emotion regulation strategies. Our sample (N=149) included adults with primary diagnoses of generalized anxiety disorder (n=66), social anxiety disorder (n=60), major depressive disorder (n=46), and posttraumatic stress disorder (n=12), in addition to healthy volunteers (n=36). Electrocardiogram and impedance cardiography measures were recorded during a structured clinical interview, resulting in an average individual time series length of 81 minutes (SD=38.5). Network dynamics were identified in person-specific networks using GIMME. Clustering identified two groups of interest: a physiologically “regulated” group, whose cardiorespiratory dynamics indicated high parasympathetic influence on heart rate, and a “dysregulated” group whose dynamic networks reflected sympathetic dominance. Those in the “regulated” group were lower on anxiety and depression measures, while the “dysregulated” group had the highest levels of distress compared to all other groups. Following these results, we hypothesized that relations between self-reported emotion regulation usage (cognitive reappraisal) and parasympathetic measures would differ by group. We investigated whether respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and respiration would differentially relate to self-reported cognitive reappraisal usage in “regulated” versus “dysregulated” groups. Results indicated that only the regulated group displayed a significant positive relation between reappraisal and respiration rate (B=6.42, t(20)=2.94, p=.01, R2=.30); in contrast, the dysregulated group showed a marginally negative association (B=-2.50, t(23)=-2.03, p=.05, R2=.11). These results suggest that differences in autonomic function exist between the physiologically “regulated” and “dysregulated” groups. The dysregulated group displayed a negative relation between average respiration rate and reappraisal, such that slower breathing was associated with higher reappraisal usage. In contrast, higher respiration was linked to more reappraisal for the regulated group, and respiration rate accounted for 30% of the variance in reappraisal score (compared to 11% for the dysregulated group).