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Vagal control of the heart decreases during increasing imminence of interoceptive threat in patients with panic disorder and agoraphobia

Richter, Jan and Pietzner, Anne and Koenig, Julian and Thayer, Julian F. and Pané-Farré, Christiane A. and Gerlach, Alexander L. and Gloster, Andrew T. and Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich and Lang, Thomas and Alpers, Georg W. and Helbig-Lang, Sylvia and Deckert, Jürgen and Fydrich, Thomas and Fehm, Lydia and Ströhle, Andreas and Kircher, Tilo and Arolt, Volker and Hamm, Alfons O.. (2021) Vagal control of the heart decreases during increasing imminence of interoceptive threat in patients with panic disorder and agoraphobia. Scientific Reports, 11. p. 7960.

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Abstract

Theoretically, panic disorder and agoraphobia pathology can be conceptualized as a cascade of dynamically changing defensive responses to threat cues from inside the body. Guided by this trans-diagnostic model we tested the interaction between defensive activation and vagal control as a marker of prefrontal inhibition of subcortical defensive activation. We investigated ultra-short-term changes of vagally controlled high frequency heart rate variability (HRV) during a standardized threat challenge (entrapment) in n = 232 patients with panic disorder and agoraphobia, and its interaction with various indices of defensive activation. We found a strong inverse relationship between HRV and heart rate during threat, which was stronger at the beginning of exposure. Patients with a strong increase in heart rate showed a deactivation of prefrontal vagal control while patients showing less heart rate acceleration showed an increase in vagal control. Moreover, vagal control collapsed in case of imminent threat, i.e., when body symptoms increase and seem to get out of control. In these cases of defensive action patients either fled from the situation or experienced a panic attack. Active avoidance, panic attacks, and increased sympathetic arousal are associated with an inability to maintain vagal control over the heart suggesting that teaching such regulation strategies during exposure treatment might be helpful to keep prefrontal control, particularly during the transition zone from post-encounter to circa strike defense.Trial Registration Number: ISRCTN80046034.
Faculties and Departments:07 Faculty of Psychology > Departement Psychologie > Health & Intervention > Clinical Psychology and Intervention Science (Gloster)
UniBasel Contributors:Gloster, Andrew
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
Publisher:Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN:2045-2322
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
Language:English
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Last Modified:18 May 2021 08:45
Deposited On:18 May 2021 08:45

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