Following your heart: Cardiac autonomic modulation as a feature of decision-making under ambiguity and risk.

Decision-making requires a bidirectional flow of information from perception, emotion, and bodily behaviour. Heart rate variability (HRV) provides a non-invasive, cost-effective way to assess this connection. 112 healthy participants completed two established decision tasks under ambiguity and risk. Heart rate was continuously recorded at rest, during, and after task performance. To account for differences in cardiac modulation the sample was stratified by sex. Time, frequency, and non-linear HRV domains were selected to assess vagal modulation and sympatho-vagal balance. Vagally meditated HRV showed a pattern corresponding to a replenishment effect by increasing during decision-making in both tasks compared to rest, and then gradually returning to initial levels during recovery. This effect may indicate successful self-regulation, such as enhanced concentration, or emotional regulation. Regarding decision-making, women and men making disadvantageous decisions under ambiguity had higher vagally mediated HRV than those making advantageous decisions. Consistent with this finding are the results for decisions under risk for women. Contrary, men making disadvantageous decisions under risk, showed lower vagally mediated HRV than those making advantageous decisions. The results suggest that there are sex-specific differences to be investigated in the future. HRV analysis is an effective approach for differentiating somatic characteristics associated with decision-making performance. • HRV reveals sex-specific differences in the type of decision and task performance. • HRV differentiates between good and poor performers in decision-making tasks. • Cardiac vagal control increases in decision-making, showing effective self-regulation. • HRV analysis is valuable for understanding decision-making under ambiguity and risk. Rebecca Prell is PhD Student at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. She currently investigates decision making in different contexts and environments. In particular, she focuses on the relationship between decision making and physiological reactions. Katrin Starcke is professor of Biological Media Psychology at the SRH Berlin School of Applied Sciences in Berlin, Germany. She is the Director of the Berlin Institute of Biomusicology and Empirical Research (BIBER). She has published widely on various topics, including decision-making under stress. Martina A. Maggioni is senior research associate at the Charité University of Medicine Berlin, and assistant Professor of Physiology at the University of Milan. She has widely published in the field of human physiology, especially exercise physiology, cardiovascular autonomic control, and human adaptation to extreme environments. She recently focused also on climate change, heat stress, and their impact on health and labour capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]