Childhood Maltreatment Influences Autonomic Regulation and Mental Health in College Students

Figures

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  FIGURE 1. An illustration of vagal efficiency (VE) during baseline, biking, and recovery. Data is displayed for 2 participants: one with high VE (top row) and one with low VE (bottom row). Figures in the left column show cardiac vagal tone [measured by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA); dotted line] and HP (solid line) over the course of the protocol. The participant in the top row has strong coupling between RSA and HP, which can also be seen in the steep slope between synchronous observations in the top right figure (slope = 114.14). The top right plot reflects the participants’ rapid shift from high RSA/high HP during baseline and recovery relative to low RSA/low HP states during physical exercise. These data suggest a rapid withdrawal and re-engagement of the vagal brake to regulate metabolic demands. The participant in the bottom panel had similar ranges of RSA values, but RSA was weakly associated with HP (slope = 59.30), suggesting that cardioinhibitory vagal influences were not efficient in slowing cardiac metabolic output.

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  FIGURE 2. Effects of childhood maltreatment on depression and anxiety as mediated by vagal efficiency. Note that in the top figures, first numbers represent path estimates and parentheses reflect standard errors, with significant paths marked with *. Partial mediation was supported by a non-zero indirect effects. In the bottom figures are density plots of VE and depression and anxiety symptoms, with lighter colors indicating higher density of observations and darker colors representing fewer observations. The modal tendency of the maltreatment sample skews left indicating poorer VE and upward indicating higher depression and anxiety symptomatology compared to the non-maltreated sample on the left.

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  FIGURE 3. Results of repeated measures analyses of variance documenting changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and heart period (HP) in response to the physical stressor (i.e., riding a stationary bike) and the emotional stressor (i.e., viewing a video of a child being maltreated) as a function of maltreatment history.