Are patterns of sympathetic and parasympathetic reactivity consistent across tasks in children and adolescents, and do they correlate with psychosocial risk factors for cardiovascular disease?
Children and adolescents demonstrate consistent patterns of autonomic reactivity across tasks, which correlate with psychosocial factors such as family conflict.
We hypothesized that patterns of sympathetic and parasympathetic reactivity observed in adults would be apparent in a sample of children and adolescents and that these patterns would be consistent across tasks. We explored the relationship between these patterns and psychosocial risk factors for cardiovascular disease. We measured preejection period (PEP) and an index of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (mean successive difference MSD statistic) during three reactivity tasks. We classified participants into four groups based on increases or decreases in PEP and MSD. Ninety percent of the sample exhibited the same pattern during at least two of the tasks. PEP and MSD demonstrated consistency, suggesting individual response stereotypy. Exhibiting a consistent pattern of decreased PEP and increased MSD was associated with less child- and parent-reported family conflict. These results are discussed in the context of vagal regulation of environmental demands.
Salomon et al. (Wed,) studied this question.