Associations Between Emotion Regulation and Heart Rate Variability in Trauma-Exposed Black Women Público

Abstract

Emotion regulation is the capacity to express, modulate, and respond to emotions appropriately based on ever changing internal and external environments. Increased emotion regulation has been correlated with greater well-being and mental health, while emotion dysregulation has been associated with multiple psychopathologies such as borderline personality disorder, depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Emotion regulation is also known to have physiological correlates such as Heart Rate Variability (HRV) which reflects autonomic nervous system activity. Greater autonomic regulation, reflected by higher HRV, has been associated with resilience to psychopathologies and increased emotion regulation, whereas reduced HRV has been linked to emotion dysregulation and a range of physical and psychological disorders such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension, depression, and PTSD. Minority populations, due to increased stressors and disease prevalence resulting from structural and cultural discrimination, would be expected to display relatively lower HRV than non-marginalized groups. Unexpectedly, a recent systematic review of HRV patterns across racial groups showed that Black populations displayed higher HRV than white populations. Researchers attributed this to a possibility of heightened emotion regulation in minority populations. The current study attempts to explore the relationship between difficulties in emotion regulation and HRV in a sample of trauma exposed Black Women at rest and during an emotion regulatory mindfulness task. Results showed that greater difficulties in emotion regulation were linked to lower HRV at rest, however greater difficulties in emotion regulation were linked to higher HRV during an emotion regulatory mindfulness task. It was posited that this result may be due to HRV being an index of effortful use of emotional regulation resources and increased engagement of autonomic systems during an emotion regulation task. Discrimination may also be seen as emotion regulation events and therefore this pattern of high HRV during an emotion regulation task may translate to experiences of minority populations. Overall, the results call on the need for cultural and contextual sensitivity when interpreting physiological measures such as HRV, especially across racial and cultural groups.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

I.     Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………...1

A.  Emotion Regulation …………………………………………………………………..1

a.    Definitions of Emotion Regulation …………………………………………1

b.    Emotion Dysregulation as a Feature of Psychopathology …………….........1

c.    Emotion Dysregulation in Trauma Exposed Populations …………………..2

B.   Psychophysiological Implications of Emotion Dysregulation ………………………..3

a.    Physiological Correlates of Emotion Dysregulation ………………………..3

b.    Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Functioning ………………………..3

c.    Reduced HRV as a Reflection of Psychopathology ………………………..5

d.    Associations of Autonomic Regulation with Resilience to Psychopathology……………………………………………………….........6

e.    HRV Measurement Methods ……………………………………………….6

f.     Relationship between Emotion Regulation and HRV ……………………...7

C.   HRV Differences in Racial Populations ……………………………………………...8

a.    Mental Health Disparities in Black Populations ………………….….……..8

b.    Emotion Regulation and HRV in Black Populations ……………….……..10

D.  The Role of Mindfulness in Emotion Regulation and HRV …………………….......11

a.    Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation …………………………………….11

b.    Mindfulness and HRV …………………………………………………….12

E.   The Present Study …………………………………………………………………...13

II.   Methods ………………………………………………………………………………….......14

A.  Participants: Recruitment and Demographics ……………………………………….14

B.   Clinical Measures ……………………………………….…………………….……..16

C.   Descriptive Statistics of Clinical Measures in Sample ……………………….….….17

D.  Breath Focused Mindfulness Meditation (BFMM) Study and Intervention ….…......18

E.   Physiological Measures …………………………………………………….….…....20

F.   Statistical Analyses ……………………………………………………..…………...22

G.  Participant Narratives ……………………………………….…...……..…………...22

III. Results ………………………………………………………………………...…...………...23

A.  Condition, Time, and DERS Effects on HRV ………………………………...…….23

B.   DERS and HF-HRV Correlations During Rest and Breath Focus Condition ………23

C.   Visual Representation of DERS and HF-HRV Relationships in Rest and Breath Focus Condition ……………………………………………………………………………26

D.  Possible Moderation Effects on DERS and HF-HRV Relationship ………………...28

E.   Participant Narratives ………………………………….…………………………….30

IV. Discussion ……………………………………………………….…………………………..33

A.  Review of Study ……………………………………….…………………………….33

B.   Finding Implications ………………………………………………………………...33

a.    HRV at Rest ……………………………………………………………….33

b.    HRV during Breath Focus Condition ……………………………………..34

c.    Associations of Emotion Dysregulation Dimensions with HRV …….……35

d.    Associations of Emotion Dysregulation and HRV in Time Intervals ……..36

e.    Moderation of Trauma on Associations of DERS and HF-HRV …………36

f.     Extending “the Cardiovascular Conundrum” ……………………………..37

g.    Interpreting HRV in People from Minoritized Racial Groups …………….39

V.  Limitations …………………………………………………………………………………..50

VI. Further Directions …………………………………………………………………………...51

VII.       References …………………………………………………………………………….…52

VIII.     Appendix  ………………………………………………………………………………..71                                                           

List of Tables and Figures

Figure 1 ……………………………………………………………………..…………………….4

Table 1 ………………..…………………………………………………………………..……..15

Table 2 ………………..…………………………………………………………………………17

Table 3 …………………..………………………………………………………………………17

Table 4 …………………..………………………………………………………………………18

Table 5 …………………………………………………………………………………………..21

Table 6 …………………………………………………………………………………………..23

Table 7 …………………………………………………………………………………………..24

Figure 3 ………………………………………………………………………………………….27

Figure 4 …………………………………………………………………………...……………..28

Table 8 …………………………………………………………………………………………..28

Table 9 ……..……………………………………………………………………………………29

Table 10 …………………………………………………………………………………………29

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Anthropology
Degree	B.S.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Psychology, Physiological Anthropology, Medical and Forensic
Palavra-chave	Emotion Regulation Heart Rate Variability
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Melvin Konner, M.D, Ph.D, Emory University Negar Fani, Ph.D., Emory University
Committee Members	Robert Paul, Ph.D, Emory University

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