Chan Jennifer F, Andersen Judith P
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Canada.
Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2025 Aug 21. doi: 10.1007/s10484-025-09721-1.
Building on prior psychophysiological stress regulation and adaptation literature (e.g., Allostatic load (AL) and Neurovisceral Integration (NVI) models), the current study explores the emerging nonlinear heart rate variability (HRV) metric-heart rate fragmentation (HRF)-and it's efficacy as a potential AL biomarker to distinguish psychosocial stress reactivity conditions and predicting subclinical mental health symptomology in healthy adults. One hundred and fifty-six (n = 156) undergraduate student participants were fitted with a chest band to monitor cardiovascular activity and completed online demographic and psychosocial surveys. Participants were grouped as healthy or displaying probable mental health symptoms (pMH; n = 94, 60.25% of sample) based on scoring above associated inventory thresholds for depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Subsequently, cardiovascular activity was measured to capture HRF under the established "RRR" experimental stress paradigm: a resting baseline, reactivity to an acute stressor task, and a paced breathing recovery. Results support the global study aim in which HRF significantly differentiated between each RRR condition (p < 0.001). While healthy and pMH individuals did not significantly differ within individual conditions, exploratory analyses revealed that healthy individuals displayed significantly greater HRF reactivity between conditions (p's < 0.001) in comparison to the pMH sample, which displayed a more blunted pattern. Overall, this study establishes associations between HRF and mental health, serving as a promising biomarker that contributes towards the AL and NVI models of stress regulation and adaptation. HRF may also identify early signs of adverse dysregulation in samples otherwise considered "healthy", while addressing the limitations of frequently used HRV biomarkers in non-clinical studies.
基于先前的心理生理应激调节与适应文献（例如，应激负荷（AL）和神经内脏整合（NVI）模型），本研究探索新兴的非线性心率变异性（HRV）指标——心率碎片化（HRF）——及其作为潜在的AL生物标志物，用于区分心理社会应激反应状况以及预测健康成年人亚临床心理健康症状的功效。156名本科生参与者佩戴胸带以监测心血管活动，并完成在线人口统计学和心理社会调查。根据抑郁、焦虑和创伤后应激障碍相关量表阈值以上的得分，将参与者分为健康组或显示可能存在心理健康症状组（pMH；n = 94，占样本的60.25%）。随后，在既定的“RRR”实验应激范式下测量心血管活动以获取HRF：静息基线、对急性应激源任务的反应以及定频呼吸恢复。结果支持了整体研究目标，即HRF在每个RRR条件之间有显著差异（p < 0.001）。虽然健康个体和pMH个体在各个条件下没有显著差异，但探索性分析显示，与pMH样本相比，健康个体在不同条件之间表现出显著更高的HRF反应性（p值 < 0.001），pMH样本的反应模式更为迟钝。总体而言，本研究建立了HRF与心理健康之间的关联，作为一种有前景的生物标志物，有助于应激调节与适应的AL和NVI模型。HRF还可能识别出在其他方面被认为“健康”的样本中不良调节的早期迹象，同时解决非临床研究中常用HRV生物标志物的局限性。
