ECG T-wave amplitude, muscle tension, and heart rate concomitants of conditioned suppression

Abstract

Two preliminary studies showed that T-wave flattening and masseter muscle tension reliably indexed the cardiac sympathetic and skeletal muscle components of a conditioned emotional response. These indices were then used to investigate cardiac sympathetic and skeletal muscle correlates of conditioned suppression with humans. Heart rate was also monitored to provide comparability with past studies. Both T-wave flattening and masseter tension CRs followed extinction patterns similar to the suppression CRs, but the HR CRs did not. It was suggested that the disparity between physiological and behavioral CRs noted in previous research may be due to the inadequacy of the indices used. The findings suggest that tension in “anxiety-related” muscles and arousal of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system parallel extinction of behavioral suppression. © 1976, Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.