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Sympathetic nervous system dominance during stress recovery mediates associations between stress sensitivity and social anxiety symptoms in female adolescents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2021

Tiffany C. Ho ,
Holly T. Pham ,
Jonas G. Miller ,
Katharina Kircanski  and
Ian H. Gotlib
Tiffany C. Ho*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Holly T. Pham
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
Jonas G. Miller
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Katharina Kircanski
Affiliation:
Emotion and Development Branch, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
Ian H. Gotlib
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
*
Author for Correspondence: Tiffany C. Ho, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry and Weill Institute for Neurosciences, University of California, San Francisco, 401, Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, CA94143USA; E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is commonly diagnosed during adolescence and is associated with psychological stress reactivity and heightened physiological arousal. No study, however, has systematically examined which aspects of autonomic nervous system function mediate likely links between stress sensitivity and social anxiety symptoms in adolescents. Here, we assessed 163 adolescents (90 females; 12.29 ± 1.39 years) with respect to life stress and social anxiety symptoms, and measured respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and skin conductance levels (SCL) during a psychosocial stress paradigm. We operationalized stress sensitivity as the residual variance in subjective stress severity after accounting for objective severity and changes in autonomic regulation using standardized change scores in RSA and SCL. In females only, stress sensitivity and social anxiety symptoms were significantly correlated with each other (p < .001) and with autonomic regulation during both reactivity and recovery (all ps < 0.04). Further, sympathetic nervous system dominance during recovery specifically mediated associations between stress sensitivity and social anxiety symptoms (B = 1.06, 95% CI: 0.02–2.64). In contrast, in males, stress sensitivity, autonomic regulation during reactivity or recovery, and social anxiety symptoms were not significantly associated (all ps > 0.1). We interpret these results in the context of psychobiological models of SAD and discuss implications for interventions targeting autonomic processes.

Keywords

adolescencerespiratory sinus arrhythmiaskin conductance level stresssocial anxiety disorder
Type
Special Section 2: Early Adversity and Development: Contributions from the Field
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 32 , Special Issue 5: Early Adversity, Stress, and Neurobehavioral Development: Honoring Megan R. Gunnar's Contributions to Developmental Science , December 2020 , pp. 1914 - 1925
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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Footnotes

†

Equal contribution.

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