A psychophysiological investigation of the interplay between orienting and executive control during stimulus conflict: A heart rate variability study

L Sørensen; S Wass; B Osnes; E Schanche; S Adolfsdottir; J L Svendsen; E Visted; T Eilertsen; D A Jensen; H Nordby; O B Fasmer; P-E Binder; J Koenig; E Sonuga-Barke

doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2019.112657

A psychophysiological investigation of the interplay between orienting and executive control during stimulus conflict: A heart rate variability study

Physiol Behav. 2019 Nov 1:211:112657. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2019.112657. Epub 2019 Aug 21.

Authors

L Sørensen¹, S Wass², B Osnes³, E Schanche⁴, S Adolfsdottir⁵, J L Svendsen⁶, E Visted⁷, T Eilertsen⁵, D A Jensen⁵, H Nordby⁵, O B Fasmer⁸, P-E Binder⁴, J Koenig⁹, E Sonuga-Barke¹⁰

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway. Electronic address: lin.sorensen@uib.no.
² University of East London, London, UK.
³ Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway; Bjørgvin District Psychiatric Centre, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway.
⁴ Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway.
⁵ Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway.
⁶ Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway; Division of Psychiatry, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway.
⁷ Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway; Division of Psychiatry, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway.
⁸ Division of Psychiatry, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway; Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Bergen, Norway.
⁹ Section for Experimental Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany; University Hospital of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
¹⁰ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, King's College London, UK; Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Aarhus University, Denmark.

PMID: 31445015
DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2019.112657

Abstract

Background: It has been hypothesized that resting state cardiac vagal activity (CVA) - an indicator of parasympathetic nervous system activity - is a specific psychophysiological marker of executive control function. Here, we propose an alternative hypothesis - that CVA is associated with early stage attention orientation, promoting the flexible uptake of new information, on which the later operation of such executive control functions depends. We therefore predicted that CVA would predict the interaction between orienting and executive control. This was tested using the revised version of the Attention Network Test (ANT-R) that was developed to distinguish between orienting and executive attention during a stimulus conflict task.

Methods: Healthy adults (N = 48) performed the ANT-R and their resting CVA was measured over a 5 min period using ECG recordings.

Results: Multiple regression analyses indicated that, when other factors were controlled for, CVA was more strongly associated with the interaction between the orienting and executive control terms than with either factor individually.

Conclusion: Higher levels of CVA are specifically implicated in the modulation of executive control by intrinsic orientation operating at early stages of conflict detection. These initial findings of higher CVA on orienting attention in conflict detection need to be replicated in larger samples.

Keywords: Alerting; Attention network test; Attention network theory; Cardiac vagal activity; Executive control; Heart rate variability; Orienting.

MeSH terms

Adult
Attention / physiology*
Electrocardiography
Executive Function / physiology*
Female
Heart Rate / physiology*
Humans
Male
Neuropsychological Tests
Orientation / physiology*
Parasympathetic Nervous System / physiology
Photic Stimulation
Reaction Time / physiology
Young Adult