Affective response accuracy and emotion regulation influence short-term blood pressure variability among healthy young adults

High blood pressure (BP) variability is a modified risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Short-term BP variability (BPV) has been associated with atypical emotional processes that are implicated in depression. Moreover, emotion regulation (ER) and affective perception play important roles in those emotional processes. The present study aimed to investigate whether ER and the perception of affective stimuli are associated with short-term BPV in a preclinical population. The sample consisted of 54 healthy young adults. Systolic and diastolic BP (SBP and DBP) were recorded using a standardized protocol of the upper-arm-cuff approach, and BPV was calculated as ranges and intra-individual standard deviations (SD) of six measures of SBP and DBP. ER was assessed by the ER questionnaire, which provided scores for the habitual use of expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal. In addition, a computerized affective perception task was used to evaluate the accuracy of affective responses. Multiple regressions were used to test whether ER and emotional response accuracy predicted the measures of BPV, and the analyses were controlled for gender and age. Results showed that among participants showing high affective response accuracy, expressive suppression was positively associated with the intra-individual SD of SBP, whereas cognitive reappraisal was negatively related to the range and SD of diastolic BP. Our findings suggest that individual differences in the use of different ER strategies influence BPV, which may account for the negative effect of affective disorders on cardiovascular health.