Integrating dynamic psychophysiological indices across time and contexts: Elucidating mechanisms, risk markers, and intervention targets.

Why should researchers measure psychophysiological processes repeatedly over time? The study of psychophysiology inherently involves sampling biological processes as they manifest over time. The most common approach is to use a brief sample to make conclusions about how individuals or groups differ. Although these types of between-subject comparisons have utility for understanding individual and group differences, many of the important conceptual questions in the field involve processes that are dynamic, varying within individuals over time.

The mind wanders to dark places: Mind-wandering catalyzes rumination in the context of negative affect and impulsivity.

Spontaneous mind-wandering has been theorized to increase susceptibility for rumination, contributing to risk for major depressive disorder (MDD). Clarifying whether-and under what circumstances-mind-wandering leads to rumination could inform the development of targeted interventions to reduce risk for ruminative sequelae. Using intensively sampled data in 44 young adults with remitted MDD and 38 healthy volunteers with 1,558 total observations collected from 2018 to 2022, we conducted multilevel models to investigate temporal relationships between mind-wandering and rumination.

Momentary impulsivity interferes with emotion regulation strategy prioritization in everyday life in remitted depression.

Background: Selectively prioritizing some emotion regulation (ER) strategies over others has been shown to predict well-being; however, it is unclear what mechanisms underlie this process. Impulsivity, which captures both top-down control of and bottom-up reactivity to emotions, is one potential mechanism of interest.

Methods: Using multilevel mediation modeling, we investigated whether lower ER strategy prioritization (i.

Human emotion processing accuracy, negative biases, and fMRI activation are associated with childhood trauma.

Introduction: Emerging literature suggests that childhood trauma may influence facial emotion perception (FEP), with the potential to negatively bias both emotion perception and reactions to emotion-related inputs. Negative emotion perception biases are associated with a range of psychiatric and behavioral problems, potentially due or as a result of difficult social interactions. Unfortunately, there is a poor understanding of whether observed negative biases are related to childhood trauma history, depression history, or processes common to (and potentially causative of) both experiences.

Autonomic complexity dynamically indexes affect regulation in everyday life.

Affect regulation often is disrupted in depression. Understanding biomarkers of affect regulation in ecologically valid contexts is critical for identifying moments when interventions can be delivered to improve regulation and may have utility for identifying which individuals are vulnerable to psychopathology. Autonomic complexity, which includes linear and nonlinear indices of heart rate variability, has been proposed as a novel marker of neurovisceral integration.