Heart Rate Variability Predicts Therapy Outcome in Anxiety Disorders: The Role of Inhibitory Learning.

Exposure therapy has been shown to be useful for the treatment of anxiety disorders. However, there are individual differences in the extent to which this intervention is effective in reducing symptoms, and a substantial number of patients may experience a return of fear (ROF). The factors associated with successful therapy outcomes are an important topic of investigation as these factors might influence the nature of the interventions as well as enhance our understanding of the process associated with the disorder and its treatment.

Acute Effects of Slow-Paced Breathing on Measures of HRV in Hospitalized Patients With Bilateral COVID-19 Pneumonia: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial.

Objective: Slow-paced breathing (SPB) with prolonged exhalation is assumed to stimulate vagal reflexes, which is represented by increased heart rate variability (HRV) values. However, most trials were conducted in healthy participants. We sought to evaluate the feasibility of SPB in hospitalized patients with confirmed bilateral COVID-19 pneumonia with major respiratory impairment and to investigate if SPB shows acute increasing effects on HRV measures in these severely ill patients with distinctly reduced vagal tone.

Sex differences in heart rate and heart rate variability responses to transcutaneous auricular vagal nerve stimulation in rats.

The identification of reliable biomarkers of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) responsiveness is a key challenge both at the clinical and preclinical level. Vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV), a surrogate measure of cardiac vagal efferent activity, is an ideal candidate. Yet, the effects of taVNS on vmHRV remain inconclusive, likely due to the high degree of heterogeneity in stimulation protocols (e.