Elsevier

Behavior Therapy

Volume 26, Issue 3, Summer 1995, Pages 457-466
Behavior Therapy

Special Series — Mechanisms, Populations, And Treatment Innovations In Anxiety Disorder
Vagal tone in generalized anxiety disorder and the effects of aversive imagery and worrisome thinking*

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7894(05)80094-2Get rights and content

Vagal tone was assessed in 15 generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and 15 nonanxious control participants during initial baseline, aversive imagery related to worry topics, worrisome thinking, and final baseline. The GAD group showed significantly lower vagal tone at initial baseline and little change over experimental tasks, suggesting the possibility of chronic reduction in parasympathetic tone. Nonanxious participants, on the other hand, displayed significant decreases in vagal tone from baseline to imagery and further reductions from imagery to worrisome thinking. Participants reported greater anxiety during worry than during aversive images but also greater ease of generation and maintenance of the worrisome thoughts. The results support prior theorizing that GAD is characterized by autonomic inflexibility, that this phenomenon is partly due to deficient parasympathetic tone, and that worrisome thinking in particular causes phasic reductions in vagal tone.

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    *

    This research was based on the master's thesis of the first author and was supported in part by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH-39172 to the second author. Portions of the present results were presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy in Atlanta, November, 1991. J. F. Thayer is now at the Department of Psychology, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, 65211.

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