Female Psychological Adjustment Following an Acute Coronary Syndrome.

Introduction: The outcomes of cardiovascular disease are consistently worse among women, regardless of age or disease severity. Such trend might arise from psychosocial factors, which should be examined in this population. Obective: To evaluate the influence of type-D personality on anxiety and depression symptoms reported by female patients after a first acute coronary syndrome.

Gender differences in quality of life perception and cardiovascular risk in a community sample.

Introduction: Self-reported heath and quality of life is an independent predictor of overall and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, and incident coronary heart disease. However, less is known regarding how gender differences in cardiovascular risk factors impact quality of life perception.

Methods: Primary healthcare users (n=261, 158 women) were screened for cardiovascular risk factors and completed the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form (SF-36).

Aversive event unpredictability causes stress-induced hypoalgesia.

Temporal predictability, or knowing when a noxious stimulus will occur, has been implicated in stress-induced hypoalgesia, but the contribution of event predictability, or knowing what the stimulus will be, remains poorly understood. To address this issue, we examined the effects of event predictability on pain intensity ratings and nociceptive flexion reflex responses. Participants repeatedly experienced five intensities of electrocutaneous stimulation, ranging from nonpainful to extremely painful, delivered either randomly (unpredictability group) or blocked (predictability group) with no cues provided.

Effects of baroreceptor stimulation on performance of the Sternberg short-term memory task: a cardiac cycle time study.

Activation of arterial baroreceptors can affect cortical activity. Cardiac cycle time studies have established that natural variations in baroreceptor activation are associated with changes in basic sensorimotor function whereas few have investigated more complex cognitive function. Aiming to improve our understanding of this phenomenon, this study examined performance on the Sternberg memory task as a function of the phase of the cardiac cycle.

Women with coronary artery disease: do psychosocial factors contribute to a higher cardiovascular risk?

Despite the mortality and morbidity burden associated with cardiovascular disease in women, there is insufficient knowledge regarding gender specificities in both biomedical and psychosocial domains. Gender differences in both pathophysiology and biological risk factors might explain distinct prevalence rates, symptom profiles, and even medical outcomes, but gender-related specificities regarding psychosocial risk factors might further explain this. The authors review the key issues on this topic and outline suggestions for future research.

Effects of unpredictable stimulation on pain and nociception across the cardiac cycle.

Previous research has demonstrated that the nociceptive flexion reflex (NFR) and pain-related evoked potentials are reduced in amplitude when elicited during the middle of the cardiac cycle. Despite these findings, suggesting a baroreceptor mechanism of antinociception during systole, pain intensity ratings reported in these studies were not modulated across the cardiac cycle. This discrepancy between the neurophysiological correlates of pain and its subjective experience was the focus of the current study that used a mixed block design to assess the effects of natural arterial baroreceptor activity on both the NFR and pain intensity and unpleasantness reports.