Cardiovascular Reactivity & Heart Rate Variability

I am interested in cardiovascular responses to stressful or demanding situations, i.e., cardiovascular reactivity. In my laboratory, I measure sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system responses to stress including heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac contractility, cardiac output, total peripheral resistance, and heart rate variability. I also utilize ambulatory blood pressure monitoring techniques to examine stress responses during daily activities and sleep.

Recently, I have focused on cardiac vagal responses to stress. I am particularly interested in cardiac vagal control, a source of heart rate variability that indexes parasympathetic control of the heart, because it may reflect poor behavioral and emotional regulation. Also, low resting cardiac vagal control has been related to risk for cardiovascular disease.

My research has shown that children and adolescents differ in their parasympathetic responses to stress, much like they differ in their sympathetic responses (Salomon & Matthews, 2000). Further, larger decreases in cardiac vagal control during stress predicts lower resting cardiac vagal control approximately 3 years later in youth. I have suggested that cardiac vagal reactivity may be an important component of the stress response that is involved in the development of cardiovascular disease (Salomon, 2005). In collaboration with Dr. Jon Rottenberg, we have recently begun examining the relationship between cardiac vagal responses to stress and depression (Rottenberg, Salomon, Gross & Gotlib, 2005) and biofeedback interventions for increasing cardiac vagal control.