Borderline personality disorder (BPD) Compass is a promising complementary intervention to dialectical behavior therapy: Comment on Sauer-Zavala (2022).

Comments on the article by S. Sauer-Zavala et al. (see record 2022-23735-001). Since its empirical debut in the early 1990s, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) has amassed substantial support for treating individuals struggling with chronic suicidality, emotion dysregulation, impulsivity, and interpersonal distress. Today, it is known to be one of the most effective psychotherapies for complex mental health presentations, such as in borderline personality disorder (BPD). In this comment, the authors highlight strengths and limitations of one promising intervention, BPD Compass, as presented by Sauer-Zavala et al. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Dynamics of mother-infant parasympathetic regulation during face-to-face interaction: The role of maternal emotion dysregulation.

The dynamics of parent-infant physiology are essential for understanding how biological substrates of emotion regulation are organized during infancy. Although parent-infant physiological processes are dyadic in nature, research is limited in understanding how one person's physiological responses predict one's own and as well as the other person's responses in the subsequent moment. In this study, we examined mother-infant respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) dynamics during the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP) among 106 mothers (Mage  = 29.54) and their 7-month-old infants (55 males). Given mothers' role in shaping dyadic interactions with their infant, we also tested how mothers' self-reported emotion dysregulation (measured via the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale) associated with these dynamics. Results showed that both mothers' and infants' RSA tended to return to their respective homeostatic points (i.e., exhibited return strength) during each SFP episode, indicating stability in RSA for mother-infant dyads. Significant shifts in mother and infant RSA return strength were observed across SFP episodes, highlighting the role of contextual demands on each individual's physiological dynamics. Mother-infant RSA dynamics varied as a function of maternal self-reported emotion dysregulation. Specifically, RSA levels of infants with more dysregulated mothers had a weaker tendency to return to homeostasis during the Reunion episode and were less affected by their mothers' RSA during the Still-Face and Reunion episodes of the SFP, suggesting a less effective coregulatory influence. Our findings have implications for the intergenerational transmission of emotion dysregulation via mother-infant physiological dynamics.

Developmental foundations of physiological dynamics among mother-infant dyads: The role of newborn neurobehavior.

This study tested whether newborn attention and arousal provide a foundation for the dynamics of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in mother-infant dyads. Participants were 106 mothers (Mage  = 29.54) and their 7-month-old infants (55 males and 58 White and non-Hispanic). Newborn attention and arousal were measured shortly after birth using the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale. Higher newborn arousal predicted a slower return of infant RSA to baseline. Additionally, greater newborn attention predicted mothers' slower return to baseline RSA following the still-face paradigm, and this effect only held for mothers whose infants had lower newborn arousal. These findings suggest that newborn neurobehavior, measured within days of birth, may contribute to later mother-infant physiological processes while recovering from stress.

A mindfulness meditation mobile app improves depression and anxiety in adults with sleep disturbance: Analysis from a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to 1) determine the effects of a meditation app on depression and anxiety in adults with sleep disturbance, and 2) explore the potential mediating effects of fatigue, daytime sleepiness, and pre-sleep arousal on the relationship between use of the meditation app and changes in depression and anxiety. METHODS: Participants were 239 adults with elevated insomnia symptoms (i.e., scores ≥ 10 on the Insomnia Severity Index) and limited or no previous experience with meditation. Depression, anxiety, fatigue, daytime sleepiness, and pre-sleep arousal were assessed at baseline, four weeks, and eight weeks. Repeated-measures ANCOVAs assessed intervention effects on depression and anxiety. Mediation models were estimated using the PROCESS macro. RESULTS: Participants in the meditation group had more improvement in depression and anxiety symptoms during the intervention period than did those in the control group. Changes in somatic and cognitive pre-sleep arousal at mid-intervention fully mediated effects on depression and partially mediated effects on anxiety. There were no significant indirect effects of fatigue and daytime-sleepiness on changes in mental health. CONCLUSIONS: A meditation app may improve depression and anxiety in adults with sleep disturbance, with effects being driven by improvements in pre-sleep arousal. Future studies should consider targeting pre-sleep arousal to improve mental health in this population.

Digital Phenotyping of Emotion Dysregulation Across Lifespan Transitions to Better Understand Psychopathology Risk.

Ethical and consensual digital phenotyping through smartphone activity (i. e., passive behavior monitoring) permits measurement of temporal risk trajectories unlike ever before. This data collection modality may be particularly well-suited for capturing emotion dysregulation, a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology, across lifespan transitions. Adolescence, emerging adulthood, and perinatal transitions are particularly sensitive developmental periods, often marked by increased distress. These participant groups are typically assessed with laboratory-based methods that can be costly and burdensome. Passive monitoring presents a relatively cost-effective and unobtrusive way to gather rich and objective information about emotion dysregulation and risk behaviors. We first discuss key theoretically-driven concepts pertaining to emotion dysregulation and passive monitoring. We then identify variables that can be measured passively and hold promise for better understanding emotion dysregulation. For example, two strong markers of emotion dysregulation are sleep disturbance and problematic use of Internet/social media (i.e., use that prompts negative emotions/outcomes). Variables related to mobility are also potentially useful markers, though these variables should be tailored to fit unique features of each developmental stage. Finally, we offer our perspective on candidate digital variables that may prove useful for each developmental transition. Smartphone-based passive monitoring is a rigorous method that can elucidate psychopathology risk across human development. Nonetheless, its use requires researchers to weigh unique ethical considerations, examine relevant theory, and consider developmentally-specific lifespan features that may affect implementation.

Influences of adversity across the lifespan on respiratory sinus arrhythmia during pregnancy.

There is limited understanding of factors across the lifespan that influence pregnant women's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), which could have implications for their health and offspring development. We examined associations among 162 English- and Spanish-speaking pregnant women's childhood maltreatment history, emotion dysregulation, recent life stress, and resting RSA during the third trimester. Moderated mediation analyses indicated that more severe childhood maltreatment history (95% confidence interval (CI) [0.26, 0.63]) and higher emotion dysregulation (95% CI [0.001, 0.006]) predicted more stress during pregnancy, and childhood maltreatment history interacted with emotion dysregulation to predict resting RSA (95% CI [-0.04, -0.0003]). Exploratory analyses revealed that women's health-related stress during pregnancy mediated the relation between emotion dysregulation and RSA regardless of childhood maltreatment severity (95% CI [-0.007, -0.002]). These findings suggest that women's resting RSA during pregnancy may reflect physical and emotional stress accumulation across the lifespan and that relations between early life adversity and prenatal psychophysiology may be buffered by protective factors, such as emotion regulation. In addition, these findings underscore the importance of distinguishing between types of prenatal stress. Given the implications for women's health and offspring development, we urge researchers to continue exploring factors associated with pregnant women's psychophysiology.

Advancing models and methods of emotional concordance.

Emotional concordance refers to dynamic coordination of two or more components of the emotion system in response to environmental demands. Concordance can occur within a person (e.g., sympathetic arousal with a fearful expression) and between persons (e.g., similar emotional expressions in couples). This introduction to the 2021 special issue examines current models and methods of concordance. First, we highlight how emotion researchers have begun to focus on concordance across a range of populations and contexts. Second, we note concordance research benefits from examination of multiple emotion systems simultaneously (within- and/or between-persons), resulting in a multivariate time series. Finally, we describe recent efforts to understand the functional (e.g., health-related) consequences of concordance. The articles in this special issue collectively point toward exciting new directions in examining whether and when concordance occurs, and how it varies by individual differences, context, and measures.

Prenatal maternal transdiagnostic, RDoC-informed predictors of newborn neurobehavior: Differences by sex.

We examined whether Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)-informed measures of prenatal stress predicted newborn neurobehavior and whether these effects differed by newborn sex. Multilevel, prenatal markers of prenatal stress were obtained from 162 pregnant women. Markers of the Negative Valence System included physiological functioning (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA] and electrodermal [EDA] reactivity to a speech task, hair cortisol), self-reported stress (state anxiety, pregnancy-specific anxiety, daily stress, childhood trauma, economic hardship, and family resources), and interviewer-rated stress (episodic stress, chronic stress). Markers of the Arousal/Regulatory System included physiological functioning (baseline RSA, RSA, and EDA responses to infant cries) and self-reported affect intensity, urgency, emotion regulation strategies, and dispositional mindfulness. Newborns' arousal and attention were assessed via the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Network Neurobehavioral Scale. Path analyses showed that high maternal episodic and daily stress, low economic hardship, few emotion regulation strategies, and high baseline RSA predicted female newborns' low attention; maternal mindfulness predicted female newborns' high arousal. As for male newborns, high episodic stress predicted low arousal, and high pregnancy-specific anxiety predicted high attention. Findings suggest that RDoC-informed markers of prenatal stress could aid detection of variance in newborn neurobehavioral outcomes within hours after birth. Implications for intergenerational transmission of risk for psychopathology are discussed.

Perinatal foundations of personality pathology from a dynamical systems perspective.

The development of personality pathology is an interactive process between biologically based susceptibilities, interpersonal patterns, and contextual factors across the lifespan. In this paper, we argue that these interactions begin before birth. We describe the perinatal period (i.e. pregnancy and up to one year postpartum) as a sensitive developmental window during which regulatory and stress response systems that confer risk for personality pathology begin forming. In addition, we present converging evidence for significant associations between perinatal factors and later life personality disorders. Finally, we present this perinatal perspective through the lens of dynamical systems theory and emphasize the promise of this framework for guiding future personality disorder research, prevention, and intervention.

Behavioral and physiological stress responses: Within-person concordance during pregnancy.

During pregnancy, a woman's emotions can have longstanding implications for both her own and her child's health. Within-person emotional concordance refers to the simultaneous measurement of emotional responses across multiple levels of analysis. This method may provide insight into how pregnant women experience emotions in response to stress. We enrolled 162 pregnant women and assessed concordance through autonomic physiology (electrodermal activity [EDA], respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]), and coded behavior (Prosocial, Flight, Displacement) during the Trier Social Stress Test-Speech. We used multilevel models to examine behavioral-physiological concordance and whether self-reported emotion dysregulation moderated these effects. Participants exhibited EDA-Prosocial concordance, suggesting that prosocial behavior may be a marker of stress. Emotion dysregulation did not moderate concordance. These findings provide novel information about behavioral coping to stress in pregnancy. Given the importance of observed behavior in the maintenance and treatment of psychopathology, these findings may provide a launchpad for future perinatal intervention research.

Intergenerational transmission of emotion dysregulation: Part II. Developmental origins of newborn neurobehavior.

We investigated whether neurobehavioral markers of risk for emotion dysregulation were evident among newborns, as well as whether the identified markers were associated with prenatal exposure to maternal emotion dysregulation. Pregnant women (N = 162) reported on their emotion dysregulation prior to a laboratory assessment. The women were then invited to the laboratory to assess baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and RSA in response to an infant cry. Newborns were assessed after birth via the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale. We identified two newborn neurobehavioral factors-arousal and attention-via exploratory factor analysis. Low arousal was characterized by less irritability, excitability, and motor agitation, while low attention was related to a lower threshold for auditory and visual stimulation, less sustained attention, and poorer visual tracking abilities. Pregnant women who reported higher levels of emotion dysregulation had newborns with low arousal levels and less attention. Larger decreases in maternal RSA in response to cry were also related to lower newborn arousal. We provide the first evidence that a woman's emotion dysregulation while pregnant is associated with risks for dysregulation in her newborn. Implications for intergenerational transmission of emotion dysregulation are discussed.