ArticleApplied psychophysiology and biofeedback2020
Troubled Hearts: Association Between Heart Rate Variability and Depressive Symptoms in Healthy Children.
Article in Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Depression and Risk of Sudden Cardiac Death and Arrhythmias: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Reviews in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Heart rate variability (HRV) in juvenile fibromyalgia: a preliminary study.Pediatric rheumatology online journal · 2025Observational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Heart rate variability (HRV) captures the change in timing of consecutive heart beats and is reduced in individuals with depression and anxiety. The present study investigated whether typically-developing children without clinically recognized signs of depression or anxiety showed a relationship between HRV and depressive or anxiety symptoms. Children aged 9-14 years (N = 104) provided three minutes of cardiac signal during eyes closed rest and eyes open rest. The association between high frequency HRV, low frequency HRV, root mean square of the successive differences (RMSSD), and pNN20 versus depressive symptoms (NIH Toolbox and Child Behavior Checklist) was investigated. Results partially confirm our hypothesis, with pNN20 positively correlated with the self-reported depression measure of loneliness while controlling for age, sex, social status, and physical activity. The association was stronger in male participants. However, there is no consensus in the literature about which HRV measures are associated with depressive symptoms in healthy children. Additional studies are needed which reliably account for variables that influence HRV to establish whether certain HRV measures can be used as an early marker for depression risk in children.
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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.