title: Heart rate variability and its neural correlates during emotional face processing in social anxiety disorder.
abstract: The monitoring and regulation of one's own physiological reactions and cardioregulatory abnormalities are central to the aetiology and maintenance of social anxiety disorder (SAD). We therefore explored the neural correspondences of these heart rate alterations. 21 patients with SAD and 21 matched healthy controls (HCs) underwent 3T-fMRI scanning. Simultaneously, high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) was acquired during a short-term resting period and an implicit emotional face-matching task. Compared to HCs, patients with SAD reported increased self-focused attention while being less accurate in estimating their heartbeats. Physiologically, they showed less HF-HRV at rest and during task. Across groups, HF-HRV at rest correlated positively with activation in visual face-processing areas. The right caudate nucleus showed an interaction of group and cardioregulation: Activation in this region was positively correlated in patients with SAD but negatively in HCs. We conclude that cardioregulation is altered in SAD on the subjective, physiological, and brain level.
authors.affiliation: Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Department of Psychiatry & Psychotherapy, Division of Mind and Brain Research, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Department of Psychology, Unter den Linden 6, 10999 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gaebler
authors.forename: Judith K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Daniels
authors.forename: Jan-Peter
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Lamke
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fydrich
authors.forename: Henrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Walter
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000503:physiopathology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012146:Rest; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen
keywords: Dorsal striatum; Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); Interoceptive sensitivity; Social phobia; Vagal tone