(PS6-B46) Embodied Risk and Resilience in Aging: A Short-term Longitudinal Study of Depression, Emotion Regulation, and Cardiovascular Function in Older Adulthood

A large body of research supports the relationship between emotion regulation, broadly conceptualized as the ability to influence the quality, experience, and expression of emotion, and mental health outcomes such as depression. Far less research has examined these relationships in older adults, who represent the U.S.’s fastest growing segment of the population.  Moreover, despite the known association between depression and cardiovascular disease, little research has assessed the role of psychophysiological constructs such as high frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV). Research is needed to better understand interactions between depressive symptoms in older adulthood, emotion regulation, and cardiovascular function.

Using a three-part, short-term longitudinal design, this study investigates relationships between four emotion regulation strategies – mindfulness, cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, and rumination – HF-HRV, and depressive symptomatology in older adults. At Time 1, community-dwelling older adults (N = 35) completed measures of emotion regulation and depression. At Time 2, participants completed a lab-based negative mood induction while HF-HRV was continuously acquired to calculate indices of cardiovascular reactivity and recovery. At Time 3, participants completed a follow-up measure of depression.

Regression analyses indicated that depressive symptoms at Time 1 predicted HF-HRV reactivity at Time 2 such that older adults endorsing greater depressive symptomatology at Time 1 tended to experience greater reductions in HF-HRV flexibility in response to the sad mood induction at Time 2, R² = .165, F(1,30) = 5.94, p = .021. Further, HF-HRV reactivity at Time 2 predicted depression at Time 3 over and above depression at Time 1, such that older adults with greater decreases in HF-HRV in response to the sad mood induction endorsed greater subsequent depression, ΔR² = .046., F(1,27) = 4.29, p =.048. Regarding emotion regulation impacts, mindfulness at Time 1 predicted HF-HRV reactivity at Time 2 such that older adults endorsing greater mindfulness tended to experience increased HF-HRV flexibility in response to the sad mood induction at Time 2, R² = .172, F(1,27) = 5.60, p = .025. In contrast, rumination at Time 1 predicted HF-HRV reactivity at Time 2 such that older adults endorsing greater trait rumination tended to experience decreased HF-HRV flexibility in response to the sad mood induction at Time 2, R² = .130, F(1,30) = 4.48, p = .043. Further, rumination at Time 1 also predicted poorer HF-HRV recovery at Time 2 such that older adults endorsing greater trait rumination tended to experience prolonged HF-HRV inflexibility in response to the sad mood induction at Time 2, R² = .184, F(1,30) = 6.76, p = .014.­ Neither expressive suppression nor cognitive reappraisal were associated with HF-HRV at Time 2 or with depressive symptoms at Time 2 or 3.