Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota,Minneapolis,MN,USA.
Dev Psychopathol. 2019 Aug;31(3):1173-1190. doi: 10.1017/S0954579419000683.
Developing the ability to regulate one's emotions in accordance with contextual demands (i.e., emotion regulation) is a central developmental task of early childhood. These processes are supported by the engagement of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), a physiological hub of a vast network tasked with dynamically integrating real-time experiential inputs with internal motivational and goal states. To date, much of what is known about the ANS and emotion regulation has been based on measures of respiratory sinus arrhythmia, a cardiac indicator of parasympathetic activity. In the present study, we draw from dynamical systems models to introduce two nonlinear indices of cardiac complexity (fractality and sample entropy) as potential indicators of these broader ANS dynamics. Using data from a stratified sample of preschoolers living in high- (i.e., emergency homeless shelter) and low-risk contexts (N = 115), we show that, in conjunction with respiratory sinus arrhythmia, these nonlinear indices may help to clarify important differences in the behavioral manifestations of emotion regulation. In particular, our results suggest that cardiac complexity may be especially useful for discerning active, effortful emotion regulation from less effortful regulation and dysregulation.
根据情境需求发展调节情绪的能力（即情绪调节）是儿童早期的核心发展任务之一。这些过程得到自主神经系统（ANS）的支持，自主神经系统是一个庞大网络的生理枢纽，负责动态地将实时体验输入与内部动机和目标状态整合在一起。迄今为止，关于自主神经系统和情绪调节的大部分知识都是基于呼吸窦性心律失常的测量，这是副交感活动的心脏指标。在本研究中，我们借鉴动力系统模型，引入两个心脏复杂性的非线性指标（分形和样本熵）作为这些更广泛的自主神经系统动力学的潜在指标。使用来自居住在高风险（即紧急无家可归者收容所）和低风险环境中的学龄前儿童分层样本的数据（N=115），我们表明，与呼吸窦性心律失常相结合，这些非线性指标可能有助于阐明情绪调节的行为表现中的重要差异。特别是，我们的研究结果表明，心脏复杂性可能特别有助于区分主动的、费力的情绪调节与不费力的调节和失调。
