Vagal tone and depression in adolescents: Protective factors during parent-adolescent interaction
Year: 2013
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Vagal tone, an index of emotion regulation, is related to a number of mental health outcomes in youth, including depressive risk and symptomology.The current study examined the role that vagal tone, as measured by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) at rest and during emotionally relevant stressors, plays in adolescent symptoms of depression.Mothers and their adolescents (ages 11-17) participated as dyads (N = 58) in paced-breathing and real-time family interaction tasks to assess patterns in vagal tone.Outcome measures were resting RSA, RSA reactivity, and adolescent-report of depressive symptomology at the time of visit and during two follow-up sessions.Multilevel modeling significantly predicted adolescent depression from multiple interactions between RSA and affect, including a three-way interaction between adolescent resting and reactive RSA and positive maternal affect during the conflict task.These analyses provide novel evidence that adolescent RSA reactivity measured during a parent-adolescent interaction task is related to youth depressive symptomology over time.
Author: Emily Patton
Institution: Case Western Reserve University
Language: English
Subfield: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2619217773