Cardiovascular responses of Type A and Type B behavior patterns to visual stimulation during rest, stress and recovery.

Differences in the cardiovascular responses of individuals with behavior patterns of Type A and Type B were investigated during rest, stress, and recovery by visual stimulation. Thirty healthy undergraduate and graduate students (mean age: 22.18+/-1.44 years) were categorized as Type A (N=14), or Type B (N=16) based on the Kwansei Gakuin's daily life questionnaire. The cardiovascular reactivity of all participants was repetitively monitored for 6 sessions, with each session comprising 3 conditional phases, viz., resting, stress, and post-stress recovery. A gray screen was displayed during resting, displeasure-evoking images were displayed under the stress condition, and video clips of a forest or a control image (a gray screen) were displayed during the recovery condition. When participants were subjected to different stimuli on a 42-inch plasma television screen in each session, electrocardiograms (ECG), impedance cardiograms and the blood pressure (BP) of the respective participants were continuously monitored. According to the results, Type A indicated higher sympathetic reactivity than Type B during resting and under stress. As such, Type A indicated a shorter pre-ejection period (PEP) level during resting and a greater cardiac output (CO) increase under stress than Type B. Furthermore, parasympathetic predominance and parasympathetic antagonism accompanying the enhanced sympathetic activity induced by the unpleasant stress images decreased heart rate (HR) in both Type A and Type B, although the decrease in Type A was relatively meager. Unlike previous studies, the present study demonstrated that Type A indicated more enhanced sympathetic reactivity than Type B in resting physiological arousal levels and visual stimulus-induced stress.