Affective response accuracy and emotion regulation influence short-term blood pressure variability among healthy young adults

Abstract

High blood pressure (BP) variability is a modified risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Short-term BP variability (BPV) has been associated with atypical emotional processes that are implicated in depression. Moreover, emotion regulation (ER) and affective perception play important roles in those emotional processes. The present study aimed to investigate whether ER and the perception of affective stimuli are associated with short-term BPV in a preclinical population. The sample consisted of 54 healthy young adults. Systolic and diastolic BP (SBP and DBP) were recorded using a standardized protocol of the upper-arm-cuff approach, and BPV was calculated as ranges and intra-individual standard deviations (SD) of six measures of SBP and DBP. ER was assessed by the ER questionnaire, which provided scores for the habitual use of expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal. In addition, a computerized affective perception task was used to evaluate the accuracy of affective responses. Multiple regressions were used to test whether ER and emotional response accuracy predicted the measures of BPV, and the analyses were controlled for gender and age. Results showed that among participants showing high affective response accuracy, expressive suppression was positively associated with the intra-individual SD of SBP, whereas cognitive reappraisal was negatively related to the range and SD of diastolic BP. Our findings suggest that individual differences in the use of different ER strategies influence BPV, which may account for the negative effect of affective disorders on cardiovascular health.

Keywords

Blood pressure variability / Affective response accuracy / Emotion regulation / Depression / Cardiovascular disease

Acknowledgments

None.

Funding

None.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: Xiao Yang, Fang Fang

Formal analysis: Xiao Yang, Catalina Roldan, Fang Fang

Investigation: Xiao Yang, Catalina Roldan, Cathryn Gallagher, Katie Heberlein

Methodology: Xiao Yang, Catalina Roldan

Writing - original draft: Xiao Yang

Writing - review & editing: Xiao Yang, Fang Fang

Ethics approval and consent to participate

This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and was approved by the Old Dominion University Sciences Human Subjects Review Committee (protocol code 1837201-8). All human subjects provided informed consent before participation in the study.

Consent for publication

Both verbal and written consent were obtained from all human subjects, and permission was obtained from each of the subjects to publish their data.

Availability of data

The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors on request.

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