#psychophysiology — Public Fediverse posts

DATE: August 15, 2026 at 06:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG

** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
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TITLE: Childhood adversity linked to altered physical response during stress

URL: https://www.psypost.org/childhood-adversity-linked-to-muted-blood-pressure-response-during-stress/

Experiencing neglect, abuse, or household dysfunction during childhood may alter how the body physically responds to psychological stress later in life. A study of 159 undergraduate students published in Psychophysiology found that individuals with a history of childhood adversity showed a noticeably muted blood pressure reaction during a stressful task and a slower return to normal levels afterward. These altered physical responses could help explain how early trauma contributes to a higher risk of heart disease in adulthood.

Adverse childhood experiences include potentially traumatic events that occur before age 18. These events range from physical and emotional abuse to household challenges like living with a family member who has a mental illness or substance use disorder. Public health experts have repeatedly linked these early traumas to a host of negative physical health outcomes, including an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

Researchers have proposed several biological pathways to explain how adversity in childhood translates to heart problems decades later. One prominent focus is the autonomic nervous system, which controls the body’s unconscious physiological functions, including the fight-or-flight stress response. When a person encounters an acute stressor, this system typically mobilizes resources by increasing heart rate and blood pressure.

Historically, scientists assumed that only an exaggerated, overly intense stress response was harmful to the cardiovascular system. But recent evidence suggests that a blunted, or unusually low, physiological reaction to stress is also a sign of a dysregulated system. A failure to mount an adequate physical response to a challenge is associated with deficits in brain areas that regulate motivation and behavior.

Some scientists suggest this blunted response is an evolutionary adaptation. Children raised in persistently threatening environments might develop a lowered sensitivity to stress as a short-term survival strategy, protecting their bodies from being constantly overwhelmed. Yet in the long run, this suppression can impair the body’s physiological flexibility.

Aisling M. Costello, a psychology researcher at Schreiner University, along with Alyndra Plagge of Trinity University and Adam O’Riordan of the University of Texas San Antonio, designed a study to test these theories. They wanted to see if a history of childhood adversity predicted how participants reacted to, and recovered from, a sudden psychological stressor.

The researchers recruited 159 young adults for a single laboratory visit. To ensure baseline health behaviors did not skew the physiological measurements, the participants were asked to avoid alcohol and vigorous exercise for twelve hours prior to the study, and to abstain from caffeine and food for two hours beforehand.

During the experiment, the participants sat in a chair while an automated blood pressure cuff monitored their cardiovascular signs. The researchers tracked the participants’ physiological states during a ten-minute resting period to establish a baseline.

The team measured several cardiovascular metrics, including heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure is the pressure in the arteries when the heart muscle contracts. Diastolic blood pressure is the pressure in the arteries when the heart rests between beats.

Next, the participants filled out a questionnaire assessing how psychologically stressed they felt at that exact moment. Then, they completed a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Task.

This task is designed to be psychologically demanding. Participants were instructed to mentally subtract the number 13 from 1,022 and state their answers aloud. They had to keep subtracting 13 from each new answer for a total of six minutes while two research assistants stood by, observing them. If a participant made a math error or took longer than ten seconds to answer, the observers instructed them to start over from the beginning.

Immediately after the math task, participants rated their psychological stress levels again. Finally, the participants sat quietly for a 15-minute recovery period while the automated cuff continued to take blood pressure and heart rate readings.

Participants also completed a standard ten-item survey that measured their history of adverse childhood experiences. The scores ranged from zero to ten, tallying different categories of early life trauma.

The mental arithmetic task worked as intended. Across the entire group, the participants reported feeling more stressed after the task. Their physiological measurements also spiked, showing marked increases in heart rate and blood pressure during the six minutes of mental math.

When the researchers factored in the participants’ history of early trauma, a distinct pattern emerged. Participants who reported a higher number of adverse childhood experiences demonstrated notably lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure spikes during the stress task. Their bodies simply did not mount the same physical response as those who reported fewer adverse experiences.

The researchers did not find this blunted response across all metrics. A history of childhood adversity did not predict heart rate reactions or mean arterial pressure, which is an average measurement of blood pressure over a single cardiac cycle.

In addition, the level of childhood adversity did not predict how subjectively stressed the participants felt. Even though their blood pressure responses were muted, participants with more childhood adversity reported similar levels of psychological stress as their peers.

The researchers also examined the 15-minute recovery period. The ability to return to a baseline state quickly is a sign of a healthy, adaptable cardiovascular system. The study revealed that participants with more childhood adversity experienced poorer recovery in their diastolic blood pressure. Their numbers lingered above baseline levels longer than those with lower adversity scores.

The researchers pointed out a few limitations to their work. Because the study relied on a cross-sectional design, it captured a snapshot in time. This type of analysis cannot prove that early childhood experiences directly caused the altered blood pressure responses.

The participants were also required to remember and report events from their childhoods, which introduces the possibility of memory biases. The sample itself consisted of college students who, on average, reported relatively low levels of severe childhood adversity. The physiological patterns might look different in clinical populations or older adults.

The study also did not screen for current mental health conditions like depression or anxiety. Since these conditions are common in young adults and can influence cardiovascular health, future researchers may want to track these variables to see how they impact physical stress responses.

Finally, the researchers adopted a conservative statistical approach by removing a few extreme data outliers from their primary analysis. These specific individuals had physiological readings that fell massively outside the normal range. When the researchers ran a secondary test that included these rare extremes, the association between early adversity and systolic blood pressure reactivity was not statistically significant.

Despite these limitations, the findings align with a growing body of evidence linking early life environments to long-term physical health. The results suggest that adverse childhood experiences might shape how the cardiovascular system manages and recovers from acute psychological stress.

The study, “Adverse Childhood Experiences Are Associated With Blunted Cardiovascular Reactivity and Poorer Recovery From Acute Psychological Stress,” was authored by Aisling M. Costello, Alyndra Plagge, and Adam O’Riordan.

URL: https://www.psypost.org/childhood-adversity-linked-to-muted-blood-pressure-response-during-stress/

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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #AdverseChildhoodExperiences #CardiovascularHealth #StressReactivity #BluntedStressResponse #HeartHealth #EarlyLifeTrauma #AutonomicNervousSystem #Psychophysiology #RecoveryFromStress #PublicHealthResearch

Psychological Research In The USSR Volume 1

A collection of articles on psychological research in the USSR.

You can get the book here and here

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Contents

From the Editors ……………………………………………………………………. 7

PART ONE
General Problems of Psychology and Psychophysiology

Development of the Higher Mental Functions, by L. S. Vygotsky.
Translated by D. Myshne …………………………………………………………… 11

Problem of Development of the Higher Mental Functions ………….. 11
Method of Investigation ……………………………………………………….. 15
Structure of the Higher Mental Functions ………………………………… 21
Genesis of the Higher Mental Functions ………………………………….. 35

Problems of Psychological Theory, by S. L. Rubinstein.
Translated by D. Myshne …………………………………………………………… 59

Special Features of the Afferent Apparatus of the Conditioned Reflex and Their Importance to Psychology, by P. K. Anokhin.
Translated by D. Myshne …………………………………………………………… 67

Concerning the Decisive Role of Afferent Systems in Nervous Activity ………………………………………………………………………….. 68
Theory of Return Afferentation ………………………………………………. 71
Theory of the Acceptor of Action ……………………………………………. 81
Role of the Foregoing Theory in Explaining Certain Physiological and Mental Phenomena ……………………………………………………… 94

The Physiology of Conditioned Reflex, by E. A. Asratyan ………… 99

Bilateral Regulation as a Mechanism of Behaviour, by B. G. Ananyev.
Translated by D. Rottenberg …………………………………………………….. 128

Some Problems on the Control of Motor Acts, by N. A. Bernstein.
Translated by D. Danimanis ……………………………………………………… 139

Results of Experimental Studies on Properties of the Nervous System in Man, by B. M. Teplov and V. D. Nebylitsyn.
Translated by D. Rottenberg …………………………………………………….. 151

“Properties” and “Types” …………………………………………………….. 152
Syndromes of Basic Properties of the Nervous System …………….. 182
Correlation Between Mobility and Strength of the Nervous System …………………………………………………………………………… 186
Investigation of the “Inhibitory” Problem ……………………………….. 189
Electrical Activity of the Cerebral Cortex and Properties of the Nervous System ……………………………………………………………. 193
PART TWO
Sensations. Perceptions

On the Nature of Mental Reflection, by J. V. Shorokhova.
Translated by D. Myshne …………………………………………………………. 201

Interaction of the Sense Organs, by S. V. Kravkov.
Translated by D. Rottenberg …………………………………………………….. 225

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 259

Manual Interaction in the Process of Tactile Perception, by B. F. Lomov.
Translated by D. Rottenberg …………………………………………………….. 260

General Characteristics of Perception …………………………………… 260
Manual Functional Asymmetries and Their Origin ………………….. 265
Experimental Data on Bimanual Interaction in Man ………………… 272
Specific Features of Bimanual Tactile Perception ……………………. 276
The Process of Bimanual Perception …………………………………….. 281
Digital Interaction in the Process of Bimanual Palpation …………. 287
Conditions Required for the Formation of an Integral Image in Bimanual Palpation ……………………………………………………….. 295
Synchronous Bimanual Palpation of Two Objects ………………….. 304

On the Basic Properties of the Mental Image and a General Approach to Their Analogue Simulation, by L. M. Wekker.
Translated by D. Myshne …………………………………………………………. 310

General Historical and Theoretical Premises in Stating the Problem of the Image ……………………………………………………… 310
Concerning Cybernetic Principles of the Theory of Image ………… 314
On the Control Function of the Image ……………………………………. 321
Concerning the Construction of a Mental Image …………………….. 326

Orienting Reflex as Information, by Y. N. Sokolov.
Translated by D. Myshne …………………………………………………………. 330

Criterion for Isolating the Orienting Reflex as an Independent Functional System ……………………………………………………….. 330
Orienting Reflex and Activation Reaction ……………………………… 335
Extinction of the Orienting Reflex and Associative Phenomena … 340
“Nerve Model of the Stimulus” ……………………………………………. 345
Algorithm of the Orienting Reaction During Differentiation of Sound Sequences ……………………………………………………….. 349
Algorithm of the Orienting Reaction in Tactile Perception ………. 359
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 360

Concerning the Activity of Man’s Visual System, by A. N. Leontyev and Y. B. Gippenreiter.
Translated by D. Myshne …………………………………………………………. 361

Development of Perceptual Activity and Formation of a Sensory Image in the Child, by A. V. Zaporozhets and V. P. Zinchenko.
Translated by D. Myshne …………………………………………………………. 395

[Psychology] of Set, by R. Natadze.
Translated by D. Myshne

Method
Preliminary Experiments
The Basic Experiment
Results of the First Variant of the Basic Experiment
Results of the Second Variant of the Basic Experiment
Conclusions

Concerning Time Perception and the Feedback Principle, by D. G. Elkin.
Translated by D. Myshne

#OpenScience #OpenTeaching community,
yesterday, for the beginning of the exam season, I gave a lecture on stress management. To demo Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia, I built a little tool to show real-time ECG + heart rate from a Polar H10 in the lecture hall.

Students could see how breathing affects heart rate. The "aha!" moments were amazing : )

It now records and is available as FOSS:
https://github.com/RGreinacher/polar-h10-ecg-viewer

#Psychophysiology #HRV #FOSS #Python #HeartRateVariability

Researchers shed light on how breathwork can induce altered states of consciousness

https://www.psypost.org/researchers-shed-light-on-how-breathwork-can-induce-altered-states-of-consciousness/

#health #mentalhealth #psychology #neuroscience #cognitivescience #brainscience #consciousness #psychophysiology #breathing #breathwork #breathe

The Emotional Symphony: Unraveling the Neural Tapestry of Feelings

#Emotions #Neuroscience #LimbicSystem #Psychology #MindBodyConnection #EmotionalIntelligence #SelfDiscovery #SomaticExperience #MentalHealth #EmotionalAwareness #CognitiveScience #PersonalityTraits #HumanExperience #EmotionalWellbeing #Neurobiology #Psychophysiology #EmotionalHealth #EmotionalTapestry

https://youtube.com/shorts/aklNsiwyTIs?feature=share

Do you care about pupillometry? We need to rewrite its history in neurosciences and psychology. Now @TrendsNeuro

A rediscovery of the forgotten early wave of pupillometry research – effort, covert attention, imagery all made visible by 1900 in a fascinating literature. https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1jKdtbotq3zQC

#neuroscience #psychophysiology #pupillometry #psychology

🚨🔍 "The Polygraph and Lie Detection" by @NationalAcademies explores alternative techniques & technologies for detecting deception 🤔💡 From brain activity to facial expressions, these methods aim to improve accuracy 📊 Read more:

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/10420/chapter/8

#Polygraph #LieDetection #DeceptionDetection #Psychophysiology #ForensicScience #Technology

Interested in learning more about some basic elements of PsychoPhys?

Join us for a workshop July 31st - August 2nd in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the University of Michigan.

Learn more at the following link:
https://web.cvent.com/event/6a962cf4-05e7-45fb-8f6f-eafe8c67ce53/websitePage:17e8f24b-550c-4a09-a091-06ccd6f667d5

#psychophysiology #summerworkshops #ICPSR #annarbor #Umich #umichigan #InstituteForSocialResearch

" A #clever way to #detect #narcissism "

"A team of #psychologists at the #University of #helsinki working with a colleague from Millsaps College, has #discovered via experimentation, a #clever new way to detect #narcissism in a person. In their #study reported in the #journal #psychophysiology the group measured physical responses to certain stimuli in people identified as having a #narcissistic personality …"

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-05-clever-narcissism.html

not openaccess :(

BBC quiz show with Gestapo-inspired design offers study on stress responses - Enlarge (credit: University of Arizona)

The hugely popular Bri... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=1984714 #cognitivepsychology #cognitivescience #psychophysiology #humanphysiology #mastermind #psychology #science #bbc

Not a new observation, but wow do fields have different norms for releasing data and code with publications.

I read a #psychophysiology article today, published 2022 in a "good" journal. I've analyzed such data before and am a bit again, but spent the last years in #fMRI methods, where #openScience is expected.

The article had no accompanying data, subject-level results, nor code, only summary stats. It was an interesting read but unsettling, like only half a paper; missing critical substance.

Is 60 / respiration rate a special quantity in psychophysiology?

I have a colleague who created a report where she estimates breathing rate in seconds as 60/breathing rate (in minutes). This is the wrong way around (should be breathing rate/60), but I was wondering if this might be another measure that I'm not aware of?

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Am I missing an obvious measure here that was mislabeled?

@neuroscience
@psychology

#physiology #psychophysiology #respiration

Anyone doing #psychophysiology studies (#HRV, #RSA, #skinConductance) have experience using data from more than one (#biopac) acquisition setup in a single study? Anything we should be careful about?

In #fMRI using images from different scanners in the same study is a major analysis challenge, but here we can either see breaths and (3-lead EKG) R peaks or not. Skin conductance seems like it might be more difficult, if e.g., amplifiers vary in drift.

⭐ Really looking forward to presenting "Breathing as Behaviour - Revisiting Evidence for 'Ventilatory Personalities'" at the Australian Society for Psychophysiology Conference in less than two weeks! 🤗

Bonus points for not having to get on a plane to speak 😎

#psychophysiology #respiration #psychology #neuroscience

@varl42 @t_viard I'm having a somewhat different experience dipping my toe back into peripheral #psychophysiology (#HRV, #RSA, skin conductance) after twenty years ... The methods and inferences do not seem to have changed all that much, and mostly the same references, etc. are used. This is a contrast to #fMRI, where papers from five years ago can seem very dated. Maybe something to do with the "maturity" of the field? Or the number/type of researchers?

Thank you @kaitclark ! 🙏 Your work will help a lot of people from our discipline!
I'd be happy if you add my surname "Schmidt" and the hashtags #cognitiveErgonomics #humanFactors #hmi and #psychophysiology

I am really excited about the positive energy here on fediscience 😃

@kaitclark would be great to be included on this list. Here are some keywords: #OpenScience #Psychophysiology #psychoneuroendocrinology

#introduction 👋
My name is Gerald Schmidt. I am a cognitive psychologist who works in the area of #HumanFactors. After working 12 yrs in R&D in the automobile industry, I now teach and research at Furtwangen University in southern Germany.
My interests lie in automation and digitalisation of work processes. I am currently fascinated by workplaces in agricultural machines and #psychophysiology measures of workload.

I'm excited to see how Mastodon evolves and want to be an active part of it.

#Introduction #Einleitung I've just moved from mastodon.social. I'm a professor of speech, language, and hearing science and #linguistics at Purdue U in the USA. I am interested in how #hearing loss and #noise affect long-term health, especially balance, listening effort, stress, etc. Also lots of other things, incl. #psychophysiology, #epidemiology, research methods (#Rstats, visualization) and #OpenScience. I speak English & German pretty well.

When a humanoid social #robot stares back at you #hri, that triggers a little #emotion, as if you met someone #psychology.
This response has been confirmed by psychophysiological measures #psychophysiology : https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301051120301496?via%3Dihub