Hintsanen Mirka, Puttonen Sampsa, Järvinen Petrus, Pulkki-Råback Laura, Elovainio Marko, Merjonen Päivi, Keltikangas-Järvinen Liisa
Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 9, 00014, University of Helsinki, Finland.
Int J Behav Med. 2009;16(3):236-40. doi: 10.1007/s12529-009-9034-8.
Novelty seeking temperament has been associated with higher coronary heart disease risk factors, but the mechanism behind the association is open. Cardiac stress response is a potential candidate.
Cardiac stress reactivity and recovery was studied in 29 healthy subjects (aged 22-37 years) scoring extremely high (n = 16) or extremely low (n = 13) on temperamental dimension of novelty seeking.
Heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and pre-ejection period were measured during challenging tasks. Differences in cardiac reactivity and recovery between the novelty seeking groups were examined with repeated-measures and univariate analyses.
The main finding was that stress reactivity did not differ between high and low novelty seeking groups, but high novelty seekers tended to show faster recovery, which is likely to be parasympathetically mediated.
The findings suggest that high novelty seekers may be more stress resilient because they might have faster cardiac recovery after stress. Cardiac stress reactivity seems not to be among the explaining factors for the association between novelty seeking and coronary heart disease risk factors.
寻求新奇的气质与较高的冠心病风险因素相关，但这种关联背后的机制尚不清楚。心脏应激反应是一个潜在的因素。
对29名健康受试者（年龄在22 - 37岁之间）进行研究，这些受试者在寻求新奇的气质维度上得分极高（n = 16）或极低（n = 13），研究他们的心脏应激反应性和恢复情况。
在具有挑战性的任务期间测量心率、呼吸性窦性心律失常和射血前期。通过重复测量和单变量分析检查寻求新奇组之间心脏反应性和恢复的差异。
主要发现是，高寻求新奇组和低寻求新奇组之间的应激反应性没有差异，但高寻求新奇者往往表现出更快的恢复，这可能是由副交感神经介导的。
研究结果表明，高寻求新奇者可能更具应激恢复能力，因为他们在应激后心脏恢复可能更快。心脏应激反应性似乎不是寻求新奇与冠心病风险因素之间关联的解释因素之一。
