ArticlePsychophysiology2017
Flexible parasympathetic responses to sadness facilitate spontaneous affect regulation.
Article in Psychophysiology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review of Associations Between Interoception, Vagal Tone, and Emotional Regulation: Potential Applications for Mental Health, Wellbeing, Psychological Flexibility, and Chronic Conditions.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Pooled it
- Emotion dysregulation and non-suicidal self-injury: A systematic review and meta-analysis.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2019Pooled it
- Brain-behavioral adaptability predicts response to cognitive behavioral therapy for emotional disorders: A person-centered event-related potential study.Neuropsychologia · 2020Trial
- Acceptance versus reappraisal: Behavioral, autonomic, and neural effects.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2019Trial
- When breath lifts your mood: Dynamic everyday links between breathing, affect, and emotion regulation in remitted depression.Journal of affective disorders · 2026Article
- Neurophysiological Markers of Regulation Success in Everyday Life in Depression.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- Ambulatory physiological state dynamics predict proximal behavioral markers of affect regulation in everyday life.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2025Article
- Individual-Specific Animated Profiles of Mental Health.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2025Article
- Examining the Impact of a Brief Compassion Focused Intervention on Everyday Experiences of Compassion in Autistic Adults Through Psychophysiology and Experience Sampling.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2025Article
- Heart Rate Variability, Autonomic Reactivity, and Emotion Regulation during Sadness Induction in Somatic Symptom Disorder.International journal of behavioral medicine · 2025Article
- The power of emotion regulation: how managing sadness influences depression and anxiety?BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Changes in heart rate variability and hemodynamics of adolescents within the frontal cortex in response to face emotional stimulation.PloS one · 2025Article
- Cognitive control processes and emotion regulation in adolescence: Examining the impact of affective inhibition and heart-rate-variability on emotion regulation dynamics in daily life.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2024Article
- Integrating dynamic psychophysiological indices across time and contexts: Elucidating mechanisms, risk markers, and intervention targets.Psychophysiology · 2024Review
- Autonomic Inertia as a Proximal Risk Marker for Moments of Perseverative Cognition in Everyday Life in Remitted Depression.Depression and anxiety · 2024Article
- Momentary impulsivity interferes with emotion regulation strategy prioritization in everyday life in remitted depression.Behaviour research and therapy · 2024Article
- Autonomic complexity dynamically indexes affect regulation in everyday life.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2023Article
- The effect of paired associative stimulation with a high-intensity cortical component and a high-frequency peripheral component on heart rate and heart rate variability in healthy subjects.Frontiers in rehabilitation sciences · 2023Article
- Utilizing Random Effects Machine Learning Algorithms for Identifying Vulnerability to Depression.Journal of depression & anxiety · 2023Article
- Recovery After Stress-Autonomic and Subjective Arousal in Individuals With Psychosis Compared to Healthy Controls.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The ability of the parasympathetic nervous system to flexibly adapt to changes in environmental context is thought to serve as a physiological indicator of self-regulatory capacity, and deficits in parasympathetic flexibility appear to characterize affective disorders such as depression. However, whether parasympathetic flexibility (vagal withdrawal to emotional or environmental challenges such as sadness, and vagal augmentation during recovery from sadness) could facilitate the effectiveness of adaptive affect regulation strategies is not known. In a study of 178 undergraduate students, we evaluated whether parasympathetic flexibility in response to a sad film involving loss would enhance the effectiveness of regulatory strategies (reappraisal, distraction, and suppression) spontaneously employed to reduce negative affect during a 2-min uninstructed recovery period following the induction. Parasympathetic reactivity and recovery were indexed by fluctuations in respiratory sinus arrhythmia and high-frequency heart rate variability. Cognitive reappraisal and distraction were more effective in attenuating negative affect among individuals with more parasympathetic flexibility, particularly greater vagal augmentation during recovery, relative to individuals with less parasympathetic flexibility. In contrast, suppression was associated with less attenuation of negative affect, but only among individuals who also had less vagal withdrawal during the sad film. Alternative models provided partial support for reversed directionality, with reappraisal predicting greater parasympathetic recovery, but only when individuals also experienced greater reductions in negative affect. These results suggest that contextually appropriate parasympathetic reactivity and recovery may facilitate the success of affect regulation. Impairments in parasympathetic flexibility could confer risk for affective disorders due to attenuated capacity for effective self-regulation.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.