TAP reading note: Perseverative cognition and vagally mediated heart rate variability in laboratory studies: A series of meta-analyses

What the study found

28 laboratory studies contributed 60 effects to six analyses, separated by phase and comparison. Resting correlations yielded g=0.46 (95% CI 0.26–0.66), within-person reactivity 0.22 (0.11–0.33), and within-person recovery 0.19 (0.03–0.36). All three between-group pooled effects were nonsignificant. Positive g was coded as lower vagally mediated HRV (vmHRV), not an increase in HRV.

Scope & limitations

Healthy, non-clinical laboratory participants, disproportionately young and female. Sources overlap across analyses: 60 effects are not 60 independent studies and the analysis-specific samples must not be summed into a unique total.

The review was not preregistered. Several analyses had substantial unexplained heterogeneity; resting correlations and within-person reactivity showed publication-bias signals. Removing one recovery outlier reduced g from 0.19 to 0.12 (95% CI 0.00–0.23; p=0.05). Within-person changes do not automatically exclude time or task confounding; nonsignificant between-group results do not prove absence of an effect. Laboratory vmHRV is not a measure of whole-person recovery, a diagnosis of perseverative cognition, an allostatic-load score or a long-term disease outcome.

Population & sample

28 studies, 60 effects. Resting correlations k=14/n=2,296; resting between-group k=5/n=246; reactivity between-group k=9/n=610 and within-person k=18/n=818; recovery between-group k=5/n=264 and within-person k=9/n=349. Here k counts effects within each analysis; studies and samples can overlap.

Exposure or intervention

Self-reported perseverative cognition or laboratory worry/rumination induction, distinguishing rest, induction reactivity and the period after participants were told induction had ended. Between-group analyses combine high/low cognition groups and induction/control groups; resting correlations are separate.

Outcomes

Standardized vmHRV differences. Within-person recovery compares the post-induction period with the original resting baseline; it is not directly a recovery-speed estimate. The three principal estimates and CIs appear in the findings; between-group estimates all crossed zero.

Time frame

Phase-specific vmHRV recordings lasted 2–15 minutes, with a median of five minutes. These observations do not establish effects over months or years.

Research funding

No separate funding statement was located in the accepted manuscript consulted. This does not establish absence of funding.

Research conflicts of interest

On the accepted manuscript title page, the authors declare no conflict of interest.

Reading scope

Read the 55-page v2 accepted manuscript posted by the authors on PsyArXiv on 22 March 2026: methods, six main analyses, sensitivity results, limitations and figures/tables; compared with the published 2026 abstract and bibliographic record. This accepted manuscript is distinguished from earlier preprints. Separately cited tables A1–A6 and supplements S1–S4 were not obtained; pooled effects were not independently recomputed.

• PsyArXiv v2 accepted manuscript and version record ↗
• Published article ↗
• PubMed record ↗

References

1. Chung Xiann Lim, Emily Mueller, William H. O’Brien (2026). Perseverative cognition and vagally mediated heart rate variability in laboratory studies: A series of meta-analyses. International Journal of Psychophysiology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2026.113368

Publication record

TAP-RDN-0075 · v1.0 · English

Author: TAP Editorial Team ·

The Allostasis Project is founded and supported by Resilio.

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