Trial reportCognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience2023
Increasing coordination and responsivity of emotion-related brain regions with a heart rate variability biofeedback randomized trial.
Trial report in Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 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
39 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 61 citations in OpenAlex.
- Physiological Effects of Psychological Interventions Among Persons with Financial Stress: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis, and Introduction to Psychophysiological Economics.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2024Pooled it
- Testing effects of paced breathing on plasma Aβ and brain perivascular spaces.International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology · 2026Trial
- A Randomized Clinical Trial Reveals Effects of Mindfulness and Slow Breathing on Plasma Amyloid Beta Levels.Psychophysiology · 2025Trial
- Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback Training Can Improve Menopausal Symptoms and Psychological Well-Being in Women with a Diagnosis of Primary Breast Cancer: A Longitudinal Randomized Controlled Trial.Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2025Trial
- Changes in Negative Emotions Across Five Weeks of HRV Biofeedback Intervention were Mediated by Changes in Resting Heart Rate Variability.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2025Trial
- Daily biofeedback to modulate heart rate oscillations affects structural volume in hippocampal subregions targeted by the locus coeruleus in older adults but not younger adults.Neurobiology of aging · 2023Trial
- Daily heart rate variability biofeedback training decreases locus coeruleus MRI contrast in younger adults in a randomized clinical trial.International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology · 2023Trial
- Changes in Medial Prefrontal Cortex Mediate Effects of Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback on Positive Emotional Memory Biases.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2023Trial
- Effects of a randomised trial of 5-week heart rate variability biofeedback intervention on mind wandering and associated brain function.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2022Trial
- Directional Brain Connectivity Changes Induced by Heart Rate Variability Biofeedback: A Spectral Dynamic Causal Modeling Study.Research square · 2026Article
- The Qur'anic heart and converging evidence from contemporary cardiac science: From qalb to cardioception.Journal of Taibah University Medical Sciences · 2026Review
- Effects of a 5-week heart rate biofeedback randomized intervention on texture in the Alzheimer's Disease signature cortical region.Research square · 2026Article
- Functional Connectivity Within the Central Autonomic Network Increases During Resonance Paced Breathing at 0.1 Hz.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Distinct brain systems support afferent and efferent autonomic activity.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neurophysiological Markers of Regulation Success in Everyday Life in Depression.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- Breathe better, live better: the science of slow breathing and heart rate variability.Acta neurologica Belgica · 2025Review
- Mapping EEG Metrics to Human Affective and Cognitive Models: An Interdisciplinary Scoping Review from a Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Ambulatory physiological state dynamics predict proximal behavioral markers of affect regulation in everyday life.Journal of psychopathology and clinical science · 2025Article
- The Effect of the Nasal Airflow Reducer on Parasympathetic Activity in Adults: A Pilot and Exploratory Study.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Article
- Emotion and Executive Dysfunction in Young Children with Disruptive Behavior Disorders: The Role of Cardiac Autonomic Balance.Journal of psychopathology and behavioral assessment · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Heart rate variability is a robust biomarker of emotional well-being, consistent with the shared brain networks regulating emotion regulation and heart rate. While high heart rate oscillatory activity clearly indicates healthy regulatory brain systems, can increasing this oscillatory activity also enhance brain function? To test this possibility, we randomly assigned 106 young adult participants to one of two 5-week interventions involving daily biofeedback that either increased heart rate oscillations (Osc+ condition) or had little effect on heart rate oscillations (Osc- condition) and examined effects on brain activity during rest and during regulating emotion. While there were no significant changes in the right amygdala-medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) functional connectivity (our primary outcome), the Osc+ intervention increased left amygdala-MPFC functional connectivity and functional connectivity in emotion-related resting-state networks during rest. It also increased down-regulation of activity in somatosensory brain regions during an emotion regulation task. The Osc- intervention did not have these effects. In this healthy cohort, the two conditions did not differentially affect anxiety, depression, or mood. These findings indicate that modulating heart rate oscillatory activity changes emotion network coordination in the brain.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.