Abnormalities in emotional and motor reactions among young prehypertensive individuals: employing continuous blood pressure analysis

Figures

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  FIGURE 1. Experiment 1 design. (a) Experiment design: 16 blocks were presented, containing either neutral or aversive pictures in randomized order. Each block lasted 60 s, followed by 60 s of rest, resulting in a total of 40 min. Each block contained either neutral or aversive pictures. (b) Example of a trial depicting an aversive picture used in the experiment. Each trial began with a fixation cross shown for 1 s, followed by a picture presented for 5 s. Ten pictures were presented in each of the 16 experimental blocks.

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  FIGURE 2. Model visualizing DBP time-course reaction in experiment 1. The DBP response of prehypertensive (PHT; n = 25) and normotensive (NT; n = 25) participants to neutral and aversive pictures. Prehypertensive individuals exhibited a decrease in DBP in response to aversive stimuli, compared with normotensive controls. In addition, slower recovery back to baseline in response to aversive compared with neutral pictures was found only in the prehypertensive group. Red lines represent the reaction to neutral pictures and blue lines represent the reaction to aversive pictures averaged across blocks during the stimulus exposure (6–60 s; the first 5 s were excluded from analysis, see text for details) and the recovery periods (60–110 s). The solid green line represents time points with significant differences in valence between groups and the dotted green line represents time points with significant differences between groups at each condition. Dotted blue lines mark the end of the stimulus exposure period (after 60 s). The gray areas are 95% confidence intervals. The baseline value -- defined as the average BP during the 5 s before the beginning of each block -- was subtracted from the BP…

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  FIGURE 3. Model visualizing SBP time-course reaction in experiment 1. The SBP response of prehypertensive (PHT; n = 25) and normotensive (NT; n = 25) participants to neutral and aversive pictures. SBP reactions differed significantly between groups and valence during large parts of the stimulus exposure and recovery periods. Red represents the reaction to neutral pictures and blue represents the reaction to aversive pictures, averaged across blocks during the stimulus exposure (6–60 s; the first 5 s were excluded from the analysis, see text for details) and the recovery periods (60–110 s). The green line represents time points with significant differences in valence between groups. Dotted blue lines mark the end of the stimulus exposure period (after 60 s). The gray areas are 95% confidence intervals.

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  FIGURE 4. Model visualizing DBP time-course reaction in experiment 2. Comparison of the DBP response to the IHE between prehypertensive (PHT; represented in blue; n = 29) and normotensive (NT; represented in red; n = 28) participants. Prehypertensive individuals exhibited a higher DBP increase compared with normotensive controls. BP reaction is averaged across blocks during the exercise (0–15.5 s) and the resting periods (15.5–45.5 s). The green line represents time points with significant differences between groups. Dotted blue lines mark the end of the exercise period (after 15.5 s). The gray areas are 95% confidence intervals.