Cardiac defense reactivity and cognitive flexibility in high- and low-resilience women

Cognitive flexibility and resilience measured through a residual approach

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Resilience refers to the process through which individuals show better outcomes than what would be expected based on the adversity they experienced. Several theories have proposed that variation in resilience is underpinned by cognitive flexibility, however, no study has investigated this using an outcome-based measure of resilience.

DESIGN

We used a residual-based approach to index resilience, which regresses a measure of mental health difficulties onto a measure of adversity experienced. The residuals obtained from this regression constitute how much better or worse someone is functioning relative to what is predicted by the adversity they have experienced.

METHODS

A total of 463 undergraduate participants completed questionnaires of mental health difficulties and adversity, as well as a number-letter task-switching task to assess cognitive flexibility.

RESULTS

Multiple regression analyses showed that better cognitive flexibility was not associated with greater resilience.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings do not support theoretical models that propose the existence of a relationship between cognitive flexibility and resilience. Future research may serve to refine the residual-based approach to measure resilience, as well as investigate the contribution of "hot" rather than "cold" cognitive flexibility to individual differences in resilience.

An empirical evaluation of The Resilience Shield model

Background

Resilience refers to the process through which individuals deal with the adversity they experience. Previous research has shown there are multiple factors that contribute to individuals’ resilience, leading to increasing interest in the development of multidimensional resilience models. Once such recently proposed model is The Resilience Shield, which clusters groups of protective factors into different shield layers. The stronger these layers, the better the protection against adversity (Pronk et al. in The Resilience Shield, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2021). While this model was based in part on existing literature, no empirical evaluation has occurred to date. The aim of this study was therefore to evaluate the model fit for each of the modifiable shield layers and the overall model, and to examine whether each of the constructs included contributes to observed resilience scores.

Methods

Participants completed a series of questionnaires via The Resilience Shield website assessing constructs relevant to each resilience shield layer. Data from 3337 participants was analysed using Structural Equation Modelling and regression analyses.

Results

The results showed acceptable fit of the measurement model for the Social, Mind, and Professional Layers, but poor fit for the Body Layer. There was also good fit for the overall model. In addition, all but one of the constructs included in The Resilience Shield survey explained independent variance in either dispositional resilience scores, or dispositional vulnerability scores.

Conclusion

These results broadly support the multidimensional structure proposed by The Resilience Shield model and suggest that (at least in the population in which it was tested) this may be an acceptable model to index individuals’ performance on a range of indicators that contribute to resilience.

Psychophysiological correlates of pain resilience in anticipating, experiencing, and recovering from pain

Although researchers have documented behavioral and brain structure correlates of pain resilience, associated physiological responses have received little consideration. In this study, we assessed psychophysiological differences between high (HPR), moderate (MPR), and low (LPR) pain resilience subgroups during anticipation, experiencing, and recovery from laboratory pain. In an initial pain anticipation task, participants (79 women, 32 man) viewed visual cues to signal possible mild or intense shocks prior to receiving these shocks. Subsequently, in a pain recovery task, participants received uncued mild and intense shocks. Subjective appraisals were assessed during each task in tandem with continuous recording of skin conductance level (SCL), heart rate variability (HRV), and corrugator electromyography (cEMG). On physiological indexes, HPR subgroup members displayed significantly lower SCL than MPR and LPR subgroups did during anticipation and experiencing of pain while no resilience group effects were found for HRV or cEMG. During pain recovery, HPR and LPR subgroups displayed weaker SCL than the MPR subgroup did in the immediate aftermath of shock. However, HPR members continued to display lower SCL than other groups did over an extended recovery period. On self-report measures, the LPR subgroup reported higher levels of anticipatory anxiety and expected pain than HPR and MPR subgroups did during the pain anticipation task. Together, results suggested higher pain resilience is characterized, in part, by comparatively reduced SCL during the course of anticipating, experiencing and recovering from painful shock.

Relevance of Objective Measures in Psychiatric Disorders-Rest-Activity Rhythm and Psychophysiological Measures

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

We present a review of recent methods of objective measurement in psychiatry and psychology with a focus on home monitoring and its utility in guiding treatment.

RECENT FINDINGS

For individualized diagnostics and treatment of insomnia, actigraphy can generate clinically useful graphical presentations of sleep timing and patterns. Psychophysiological measures may complement psychometrics by tracking parallel changes in physiological responses and emotional functioning, especially during therapy for trauma symptoms and emotion regulation. It seems that rather than defining universal cut-offs, an individualised range of variability could characterize treatment response. Wearable actigraphy and psychophysiological sensors are promising devices to provide biofeedback and guide treatment. Use of feasible and reliable technology during experimental and clinical procedures may necessitate defining healthy and abnormal responses in different populations and pathological states. We present a "call for action" towards further collaborative work to enable large scale use of objective measures.