Differences in Cardiovascular Emotional Dampening in Individuals With Essential and Secondary Hypertension

Abstract: Background: Cardiovascular emotional dampening (CED) refers to reduced emotion recognition associated with persistently elevated resting blood pressure (BP). Whether this phenomenon manifests differently in essential hypertension (EH) and secondary hypertension (SH) remains unclear. Aim: This study examined differences in CED among individuals with EH, SH, and normotension, and whether such differences vary by sensory modality (visual vs. auditory), level of processing (implicit vs. explicit), and performance indices (accuracy and response time). Method: Ninety participants (30/group) completed computerized implicit (emotion-matching) and explicit (emotion-labelling) tasks assessing visual and auditory emotion recognition. Mixed-design ANCOVAs controlling for age, sex, and education were conducted. Results: A significant BP group × level of recognition interaction emerged for accuracy, with both EH and SH groups showing poorer implicit and explicit emotion recognition compared to normotensive participants. For response time, a significant three-way interaction was observed. Visual emotion recognition speed did not differ between the hypertensive groups. In contrast, during auditory emotion recognition, SH participants were slower than EH participants at the implicit level, whereas EH participants were slowest at the explicit level. Limitations: The cross-sectional design and the possibility of cross-race effects should be considered when interpreting the findings. Conclusion: The findings demonstrate the presence of CED in individuals with SH, similar to those with EH, primarily reflected in reduced emotion recognition accuracy relative to normotensive individuals. Additionally, differences in emotion recognition speed appeared more pronounced in the auditory than the visual modality; however, this finding should be interpreted with caution given differences in task structure across modalities.