Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Psychology, 7049 Trondheim, Norway.
The Arctic University of Norway, Department of Psychology, Hansine Hansens veg 18, Tromsø 9019, Norway.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2017 Nov;121:38-45. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2017.08.005. Epub 2017 Aug 19.
Sample entropy (SampEn) gives an estimate of signal complexity in cardiac time series and can give information beyond linear heart rate variability. Lower cardiac SampEn is associated with psychopathology in adults. Emotional dysregulation is widely present in adult psychopathology and a forerunner to later mental problems in children. Therefore, this study investigated whether SampEn relates to emotional dysregulation in children.
Participants were 32 children between 9 and 13years with internalizing difficulties and 25 controls. Parents filled out the "Emotional Problems" subscale in the Strengths and Difficulties questionnaire and the "Lability/Negativity" scale in the Emotion Regulation Checklist. SampEn, root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD), normalized power of high frequency (HFnu) components of the cardiac signal and pre-ejection period (PEP) were computed at rest. The study investigated the predictive power of SampEn, RMSSD and HFnu on the measures of emotional dysregulation. It also tested whether RMSSD or PEP were related to SampEn.
SampEn was a significant predictor of both measures of emotional dysregulation, while RMSSD and HFnu were not. RMSSD and PEP were both significant predictors of SampEn.
SampEn is a potential marker of dysregulation in the underlying neurovisceral processes vital for emotion regulation, and an important complementary measure to linear cardiac indices, explaining more of the variance in emotional dysregulation than RMSSD and HFnu in this study. Lower SampEn can also be linked to both higher vagal and sympathetic activation via RMSSD and PEP.
样本熵（SampEn）可用于估计心脏时间序列中的信号复杂度，并提供超出线性心率变异性的信息。较低的心脏 SampEn 与成人精神病理学有关。情绪失调在成人精神病理学中广泛存在，并且是儿童后期心理问题的先兆。因此，本研究调查了 SampEn 是否与儿童的情绪失调有关。
参与者为 32 名 9 至 13 岁的有内化困难的儿童和 25 名对照。父母填写了“长处与困难问卷”中的“情绪问题”子量表和“情绪调节检查表”中的“易变性/负性”量表。在休息时计算了心脏信号的 SampEn、均方根差的连续差异（RMSSD）、高频（HFnu）分量的归一化功率和射血前期（PEP）。该研究调查了 SampEn、RMSSD 和 HFnu 对情绪失调测量值的预测能力。还测试了 RMSSD 或 PEP 是否与 SampEn 相关。
SampEn 是两种情绪失调测量值的显著预测因子，而 RMSSD 和 HFnu 则不是。RMSSD 和 PEP 都是 SampEn 的显著预测因子。
SampEn 是对情绪调节至关重要的潜在神经内脏过程失调的标志物，是线性心脏指数的重要补充指标，在本研究中，它比 RMSSD 和 HFnu 能更好地解释情绪失调的变化。较低的 SampEn 也可以通过 RMSSD 和 PEP 与较高的迷走神经和交感神经激活相关联。
