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. 2001 Aug:179:144-50.
doi: 10.1192/bjp.179.2.144.

Autonomic reactivity and psychopathology in middle childhood

W T Boyce  1 , J Quas, A Alkon, N A Smider, M J Essex, D J Kupfer; MacArthur Assessment Battery Working Group of the MacArthur Foundation Research Netwrok on Psychopathology and Development
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Free article

Autonomic reactivity and psychopathology in middle childhood

W T Boyce et al. Br J Psychiatry. 2001 Aug.
Free article

Abstract

Background: Better indicators are needed for identifying children with early signs of developmental psychopathology.

Aims: To identify measures of autonomic nervous system reactivity that discriminate children with internalising and externalising behavioural symptoms.

Method: A cross-sectional study of 122 children aged 6--7 years examined sympathetic and parasympathetic reactivity to standardised field-laboratory stressors as predictors of parent- and teacher-reported mental health symptoms.

Results: Measures of autonomic reactivity discriminated between children with internalising behaviour problems, externalising behaviour problems and neither. Internalisers showed high reactivity relative to low-symptom children, principally in the parasympathetic branch, while externalisers showed low reactivity, in both autonomic branches.

Conclusions: School-age children with mental health symptoms showed a pattern of autonomic dimorphism in their reactivity to standardised challenges. This observation may be of use in early identification of children with presyndromal psychopathology.

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