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Executive and Motivational Control of Performance Task Behavior, and Autonomic Heart-rate Regulation in Children: Physiologic Validation of Two-factor Solution Inhibitory Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 1998

Enrico Mezzacappa ,
Daniel Kindlon ,
J. Philip Saul  and
Felton Earls
Enrico Mezzacappa
Affiliation:
The Judge Baker Children's Center, Harvard University, Boston, U.S.A.
Daniel Kindlon
Affiliation:
Harvard University School of Public Health, Boston, U.S.A.
J. Philip Saul
Affiliation:
The Children's Hospital, Harvard University, Boston, U.S.A.
Felton Earls
Affiliation:
Harvard University School of Public Health, Boston, U.S.A.
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Abstract

Forty-two (42) children (mean age 10.6 years) from mainstream public (N=22) and therapeutic schools (N=20) completed performance tasks assessing executive and motivational influences on motor responses. In a separate protocol, children underwent physiologic challenges of paced breathing and supine to standing postural change, while heart rate was continuously monitored.

Executive control was associated with vagal modulation of respiratory driven, high-frequency heart-rate variability (t=2.20, p<.03), whereas motivational control was associated with sympathetic modulation of posturally driven, low-frequency heart-rate variability (t=−2.22, p<.03). These findings supported a two-factor solution of inhibitory control derived in a previous study.

Keywords

Psychophysiologyimpulsivitymotivationheart-rate variabilityexecutive control
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , May 1998 , pp. 525 - 531
Copyright
© 1998 Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry

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