TY - JOUR

T1 - Resting heart rate variability in young women is a predictor of EEG reactions to linguistic ambiguity in sentences

AU - Liou, Michelle

AU - Hsieh, Jih Fu

AU - Evans, Jonathan

AU - Su, I. wen

AU - Nayak, Siddharth

AU - Lee, Juin Der

AU - Savostyanov, Alexander N.

N1 - Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

PY - 2018/12/15

Y1 - 2018/12/15

N2 - Recent research has found a relationship between heart rate variability (HRV) and cognitive control mechanisms underlying various experimental tasks. This study explored the interaction between gender and resting-state HRV in brain oscillatory activity during visual recognition of linguistic ambiguity while taking state and trait anxiety scores into account. It is well known that stress or anxiety increases arousal levels, particularly under uncertainty situations. We tasked 50 young Mandarin speakers (26 women; average age 26.00 ± 4.449) with the recognition of linguistic ambiguity in English (foreign) sentences with the purpose of imposing a sense of uncertainty in decision-making. Our results revealed a dependency between resting-state HRV and theta/alpha power in individual women. Low HRV women showed stronger theta/alpha desynchronization compared with their high HRV counterparts, independent of topographic localization. However, low and high HRV men exhibited comparable theta/alpha activity. Trait anxiety scores affected alpha power in the parieto-occipital regions, whereas men with higher scores and women with lower scores showed stronger alpha desynchronization. We posit that stress-provoking situations may impose additional effects on theta/alpha desynchronization in the frontal and temporal regions, a condition in which the interdependency between brain oscillatory activity and resting-state HRV could interact with cognitive control differently in men and women.

AB - Recent research has found a relationship between heart rate variability (HRV) and cognitive control mechanisms underlying various experimental tasks. This study explored the interaction between gender and resting-state HRV in brain oscillatory activity during visual recognition of linguistic ambiguity while taking state and trait anxiety scores into account. It is well known that stress or anxiety increases arousal levels, particularly under uncertainty situations. We tasked 50 young Mandarin speakers (26 women; average age 26.00 ± 4.449) with the recognition of linguistic ambiguity in English (foreign) sentences with the purpose of imposing a sense of uncertainty in decision-making. Our results revealed a dependency between resting-state HRV and theta/alpha power in individual women. Low HRV women showed stronger theta/alpha desynchronization compared with their high HRV counterparts, independent of topographic localization. However, low and high HRV men exhibited comparable theta/alpha activity. Trait anxiety scores affected alpha power in the parieto-occipital regions, whereas men with higher scores and women with lower scores showed stronger alpha desynchronization. We posit that stress-provoking situations may impose additional effects on theta/alpha desynchronization in the frontal and temporal regions, a condition in which the interdependency between brain oscillatory activity and resting-state HRV could interact with cognitive control differently in men and women.

KW - Anxiety

KW - Event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs)

KW - Resting-state HRV

KW - Semantic recognition

KW - Stress

KW - Uncertainty in decision-making

KW - MENSTRUAL-CYCLE

KW - ALPHA-OSCILLATIONS

KW - COGNITIVE FUNCTION

KW - PHASE-SYNCHRONIZATION

KW - THETA-OSCILLATIONS

KW - TRAIT ANXIETY INVENTORY

KW - SEX-DIFFERENCES

KW - RIGHT-HEMISPHERE

KW - GENDER-DIFFERENCES

KW - EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85049995569&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.brainres.2018.07.009

DO - 10.1016/j.brainres.2018.07.009

M3 - Article

C2 - 30006295

AN - SCOPUS:85049995569

VL - 1701

SP - 1

EP - 17

JO - Brain Research

JF - Brain Research

SN - 0006-8993

ER -