title: Individual differences in cardiac vagal tone are associated with differential neural responses to facial expressions at different spatial frequencies: an ERP and sLORETA study.
abstract: A previous study has shown that greater cardiac vagal tone, reflecting effective self-regulatory capacity, was correlated with superior visual discrimination of fearful faces at high spatial frequency Park et al. (Biological Psychology 90:171-178, 2012b). The present study investigated whether individual differences in cardiac vagal tone (indexed by heart rate variability) were associated with different event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in response to fearful and neutral faces. Thirty-six healthy participants discriminated the emotion of fearful and neutral faces at broad, high, and low spatial frequencies, while ERPs were recorded. Participants with low resting heart rate variability-characterized by poor functioning of regulatory systems-exhibited significantly greater N200 activity in response to fearful faces at low spatial frequency and greater LPP responses to neutral faces at high spatial frequency. Source analyses-estimated by standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA)-tended to show that participants with low resting heart rate variability exhibited increased source activity in visual areas, such as the cuneus and the middle occipital gyrus, as compared with participants with high resting heart rate variability. The hyperactive neural activity associated with low cardiac vagal tone may account for hypervigilant response patterns and emotional dysregulation, which heightens the risk of developing physical and emotional problems.
authors: Clinical Emotion and Cognition Research Laboratory, Goyang, Republic of Korea.
authors: Gewnhi
authors: G
authors: Park
authors: Eunok
authors: E
authors: Moon
authors: Do-Won
authors: DW
authors: Kim
authors: Seung-Hwan
authors: SH
authors: Lee
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012044:Regression Analysis; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D014630:Vagus Nerve / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult