Institute of Psychology, Memory, Brain & Cognition Laboratory, Université Paris Cité, Paris, France.
Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), Paris, France.
Psychophysiology. 2024 Aug;61(8):e14588. doi: 10.1111/psyp.14588. Epub 2024 May 20.
Vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) at resting state has been associated to cognitive functions dependent on cognitive control, such as memory. However, little is known about the phasic interaction between cognitive and autonomic control. In a pre-registered within-between-subject designed experiment, the potential of vmHRV biofeedback to simultaneously stimulate vmHRV during memory processing and cognitive control over long-term memory was tested, along with investigating psychophysiological association. 71 young healthy adults completed (twice) a false memory task in virtual reality. Immediately before memory encoding and retrieval, participants practiced either vmHRV biofeedback or a control breathing exercise. Cognitive control over long-term memory was assessed as the confidence toward false memories and the capability to discriminate them from true memories. Resting-state vmHRV before each test and phasic vmHRV during memory encoding and retrieval were measured as the root mean square differences (RMSSD) in the heart period. vmHRV biofeedback had neither an immediate effect on measures of cognitive control over long-term memory nor on phasic RMSSD. Moreover, neither resting-state nor phasic vmHRV correlated to the cognitive scores. Consequently, the utility of HRV biofeedback as a psychophysiological stimulation tool and a link between vmHRV and cognitive control over long-term memory could not be verified. Exploratory analyses revealed that baseline shift in parasympathetic activity confounded the psychophysiological association. Future directions are provided that could shed light on the relationship between cognition and vmHRV.
静息状态下的迷走神经介导的心率变异性（vmHRV）与依赖认知控制的认知功能有关，例如记忆。然而，对于认知和自主控制之间的相位相互作用知之甚少。在一项预先注册的个体内设计实验中，测试了 vmHRV 生物反馈在记忆处理期间同时刺激 vmHRV 和对长期记忆进行认知控制的潜力，同时还调查了心理生理关联。71 名年轻健康的成年人在虚拟现实中完成（两次）虚假记忆任务。在记忆编码和检索之前，参与者练习 vmHRV 生物反馈或对照呼吸练习。长期记忆的认知控制通过对虚假记忆的信心和区分它们与真实记忆的能力来评估。在每次测试之前测量静息状态下的 vmHRV，以及在记忆编码和检索期间测量相位 vmHRV，作为心动周期的均方根差（RMSSD）。vmHRV 生物反馈既没有对长期记忆的认知控制措施产生即时影响，也没有对相位 RMSSD 产生影响。此外，静息状态和相位 vmHRV 均与认知分数无关。因此，无法验证 HRV 生物反馈作为心理生理刺激工具的效用，以及 vmHRV 与长期记忆的认知控制之间的联系。探索性分析表明，迷走神经活动的基线偏移使心理生理关联复杂化。提供了未来的方向，可以阐明认知与 vmHRV 之间的关系。
