Evgeny G Vaschillo

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey | Rutgers · Center of Alcohol Studies

Background Craving for alcohol and other drugs is a complex in-the-moment experience that involves within-person changes in physiological arousal and affect. We evaluated the utility of a just-in-time, self-administered resonance breathing smartphone application (app) to reduce craving and improve affect in women during outpatient treatment for sub...

Interoception, the ability to perceive internal bodily sensations, and heart rate variability (HRV) share common physiological pathways, including the baroreflex feedback loop. The baroreflex can be activated by resonance breathing, wherein respiration is paced at 6 times per minute (0.1 Hz), eliciting immediate physiological changes and longer-ter...

Interoception, the ability to perceive internal bodily sensations, and heart rate variability (HRV) share common physiological pathways, including the baroreflex feedback loop. The baroreflex can be activated by resonance breathing, wherein respiration is paced at 6 times per minute (0.1Hz), eliciting immediate physiological changes and longer-term...

Rationale Alcohol priming can modulate the value of rewards, as observed through the effects of acute alcohol administration on cue reactivity. However, little is known about the psychophysiological mechanisms driving these effects. Here, we examine how alcohol-induced changes in bodily states shape the development of implicit attentional biases an...

Heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of the variability in intervals between subsequent heart beats, is now widely considered an index of emotion regulatory capacity and the ability to adapt flexibly to changing environmental demands. Abnormalities in HRV are implicated in a host of psychopathologies, making it a potentially powerful transdiagno...

Background: Alcohol priming can modulate the value of rewards, as observed through the effects of acute alcohol administration on cue reactivity. However, little is known about the psychophysiological mechanisms driving these effects. Here we examine how alcohol-induced changes in bodily states shape the development of implicit attentional biases a...

For many years it has been an axiom among practitioners of heart rate variability biofeedback that heart rate and breathing vary in phase with each other when people do resonance frequency breathing. When people breathe at the frequency of the baroreflex system, about 0.1 Hz, heart rate and blood pressure have been found to oscillate 180° out of ph...

The role of interoceptive signals in the development of cognitive biases for drug related cues has been hypothesized in the past, however, experimental evidence is lacking. This report examined the relationship between physiological responses and memories for alcohol cues. Participants (n=158) were categorized as having either a positive or negativ...

Arterial elasticity is an important indicator of risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). It is influenced by both gradual vessel wall damage due to aging and disease and vascular tone that responds, at the moment, to system loading. Measuring changes in arterial elasticity are critical to early detection of CVD but can be time and resource intensive...

Background Low sensitivity to alcohol in persons with a family history of alcoholism (FH+), compared to those without (FH−), contributes to risk for alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, sensitivity of FH+ cardiovascular response to alcohol is not well understood. This gap is significant because cardiovascular processes contribute to emotional regul...

The cardiovascular system is disrupted by chronic excessive alcohol use and often impaired in individuals with an alcohol use disorder (AUD). Less is known about cardiovascular recovery when an individual receives treatment for AUD. This observational study aimed to extend the growing body of evidence for cardiovascular biomarkers and intervention...

0.1 Hz breathing for brain stimulation

Please send correspondence to Evgeny Vaschillo, Ph.D. at evaschil@smithers.rutgers.edu METHOD ECG and beat-to-beat blood pressure were collected during several 5-minute tasks. RRI intervals of the ECG and beat-to-beat pulse transit times (PTT, as evaluation of vascular tone (VT)) were measured. Stroke volume (SV) was evaluated using the Modelflow m...

Difficulty regulating emotion is a cardinal feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD), yet little is known about the automatic psychophysiological processes involved in this phenotype. Inconsistent findings have emerged from studies that employed limited assessments (e.g., heart rate variability, skin conductance) of autonomic nervous system...

Despite previous findings of therapeutic effects for heart rate variability biofeedback (HRVB) on asthma, it is not known whether HRVB can substitute either for controller or rescue medication, or whether it affects airway inflammation. Sixty-eight paid volunteer steroid naïve study participants with mild or moderate asthma were given 3 months of H...

Objective: It has been nearly 15 years since Kazdin and Nock published methodological and research recommendations for understanding mechanisms of change in child and adolescent therapy. Their arguments and enthusiasm for research on mechanisms of behavior change (MOBCs) resonated across disciplines and disorders, as it shined a light on the cruci...

Binge drinking is widespread on American college campuses, but its effects on the cardiovascular system are poorly understood. This study sought evidence of preclinical cardiovascular changes in binge drinking young adults (n = 24) compared to nondrinking (n = 24) and social drinking (n = 23) peers during baseline, paced sighing (0.033 Hz), and pac...

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a complex disorder characterized by intense and rapidly shifting affective states. To date, the cognitive components of emotion dysregulation in BPD have received much research attention. The collateral psychophysiological processes, however, remain poorly understood. Because emotion regulation is mediated b...

Background: The detrimental effects of chronic heavy alcohol use on the cardiovascular system are well established and broadly appreciated. Integrated cardiovascular response to an acute dose of alcohol has been less studied. This study examined the early effects of an acute dose of alcohol on the cardiovascular system, with particular emphasis on...

Elicitation of high-amplitude oscillations in the cardiovascular system may serve to dampen psychophysiological reactivity to emotional and cognitive loading. Prior work has used paced breathing to impose clinically valuable high-amplitude ∼0.1Hz oscillations. In this study, we investigated whether rhythmical sighing could likewise produce high-amp...

Heart rate variability biofeedback (HRV BFB) is a biobehavioral clinical intervention that is gaining growing empirical support for the treatment of a number of psychological disorders, several of which are highly comorbid with substance use disorders (SUDs). The present article reviews the autonomic nervous system bases of two key processes implic...

The positive effects of resonance breathing (0.1 Hz; ~6 breaths-per-minute [6P]) on cardiovascular functions and clinical symptoms have been well-documented, yet little is known about functional brain responses during resonance breathing. The present study investigated hemodynamic oscillation in the whole brain during 6P by simultaneously assessing...

Heart rate variability biofeedback intervention involves slow breathing at a rate of ~6 breaths per min (resonance breathing) to maximize respiratory and baroreflex effects on heart period oscillations. This intervention has wide-ranging clinical benefits and is gaining empirical support as an adjunct therapy for biobehavioral disorders, including...

Objective: Emerging adults often begin making independent lifestyle choices during college, yet the association of these choices with fundamental indicators of health and adaptability is unclear. The present study examined the relationship between health risks and neurocardiac function in college drinkers. Method: Heart rate variability (HRV) wa...

Heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback (BFB) can be used to reduce activation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and increase activation of the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). A growing body of research suggests that increased arousal of the SNS contributes to the sustained state of postconcussion syndrome (PCS). It has also been postu...

This study examined the relationship of negative affect and alcohol use behaviors to baseline respiration and respiratory response to emotional challenge in young adults (N = 138, 48 % women). Thoracic-to-abdominal ratio, respiratory frequency and variability, and minute volume ventilation were measured during a low-demand baseline task, and emotio...

Alcohol dependence (AD) is resistant to treatment and many patients relapse within the first year following treatment. There is a need to better understand specific factors that predict and moderate treatment response to help in the formulation of improved treatments for AD. One promising individual difference factor that is thought to influence AD...

Alcohol dependence (AD) is resistant to treatment and many patients relapse within the following year. AD treatment effectiveness is further compromised in patients exhibiting co-occurring personality disorder (PD) symptomology, particularly that associated with the dramatic, emotional or erratic PDs in cluster-B (borderline, histrionic, narcissist...

Beck Anxiety Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and SCID-II screener for PD pathology were administered at a pretreatment baseline interview. Physiological Measures • Electrocardiogram (ECG) was recorded at rest, over a 5 minute period. • ECG was used to calculate heart rate as beats per minute, and HRV as indicated by the time-domain measures,...

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Biofeedback is used to restore balance in the activity of the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system by increasing or reducing the activity of either. Researchers have postulated that a fundamental cause of refractory postconcussion syndrome (PCS) is physiologic dysfunction that fails t...

Human adaptability involves interconnected biological and psychological control processes that determine how successful we are in meeting internal and environmental challenges. Heart rate variability (HRV), the variability in consecutive R-wave to R-wave intervals (RRI) of the electrocardiogram, captures synergy between the brain and cardiovascular...

The arterial baroreflex system (BRS) consists of at least three closed-loop control systems: the heart rate (HR), vascular tone (VT), and stroke volume (SV) BRSs. Whereas HR-BRS gain is well studied, VT-BRS and SV-BRS gain are not. This study aimed to develop a method for quantifying VT-BRS and SV-BRS gain using an established HR-BRS gain measureme...

BRS includes at least three interrelated branches that link blood pressure (BP) to heart rate (HR), vascular tone (VT), and stroke volume (SV). Each branch is a closed-loop control system which has its own resonance frequency (RF). As a multi-resonance system, the baroreflex can produce heart rate (HR) oscillations at resonance frequencies in respo...

Alcohol outcome expectancies, and reactivity to alcohol cues are two well-studied phenomena that have been used to predict drinking behavior in both social and problem drinkers. However, the relationship between these two factors has not been well explored, and extant studies have found equivocal results. We investigated whether the relationship be...

Growing evidence suggests that Heart Rate Variability (HRV) biofeedback (BFB) may improve sport performance by helping athletes cope with the stress of competition. This study sought to identify whether HRV BFB procedure impacted psychological, physiological, and sport performance of a collegiate golfer. This individual volunteered to participate i...

The heart rate (HR) and vascular tone (VT) baroreflexes are control systems with negative feedback. As closed-loop control systems with delays, they possess resonance features at approximately 0.1 Hz and 0.03 Hz, which correspond to a ∼5-s delay in the blood pressure (BP) response to HR changes and a ∼15-s delay in VT response to BP changes, respec...

Paced 0.1 Hz breathing causes high-amplitude HR oscillation, triggering resonance in the cardiovascular system (CVS). This oscillation is considered to be a primary therapeutic factor in HRV biofeedback treatments. This study examined whether rhythmical skeletal muscle tension (RSMT) can also cause 0.1 Hz resonance in the CVS, and compared oscillat...

Sterba and Bauer's Keynote Article discusses the blurred distinction between theoretical principles and analytical methods in the person-oriented approach as problematic and review which of the person-oriented principles are testable under the four types of latent variable models for longitudinal data. Although the issue is important, some arbitrar...

In this pilot study, we investigated respiratory activity and end-tidal carbon dioxide (P(et)CO(2)) during exposure to varying levels of work load in a simulated flight environment. Seven pilots (age: 34-60) participated in a one-session test on the Boeing 737-800 simulator. Physiological data were collected while pilots wore an ambulatory multi-ch...

Seven professional airplane pilots participated in a one-session test in a Boeing 737-800 simulator. Mental workload for 18 flight tasks was rated by experienced test pilots (hereinafter called "expert ratings") and by study participants' self-report on NASA's Task Load Index (TLX) scale. Pilot performance was rated by a check pilot. The standard d...

Basic mechanisms through which men and women self-regulate arousal have received little attention in human experimental addiction research, although stress-response-dampening and craving theories suggest an important role of emotional arousal in motivating alcohol use. This study examined gender differences in the effects of acute alcohol intoxicat...

This paper reports analysis of data from a previous study examining cardiovascular effects of rhythmical skeletal muscle tension (RSMT) at 0.1Hz. Our analysis examined whether 0.1Hz RSMT stimulates resonance properties of the cardiovascular system provided by baroreflex (BR) activity. Thirty-seven study participants tensed their large skeletal musc...

Heart rate variability (HRV) supports emotion regulation and is reduced by alcohol. Based on the resonance properties of the cardiovascular system, a new 0.1-Hz methodology was developed to present emotional stimuli and assess HRV reaction in participants (N=36) randomly assigned to an alcohol, placebo, or control condition. Blocked picture cues (n...

Model-based cluster analysis is a new clustering procedure to investigate population heterogeneity utilizing finite mixture multivariate normal densities. It is an inferentially based, statistically principled procedure that allows comparison of nonnested models using the Bayesian information criterion to compare multiple models and identify the op...

Heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback (BFB) is a relatively new approach for helping athletes to regulate competitive stress. To investigate this phenomenon further, a qualitative case study examined the impact of HRV BFB on the mood, physiology, and sport performance of a 14-year-old golfer. The golfer met once per week at a university lab for...

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common mood disorder that can result in significant discomfort as well as interpersonal and functional disability. A growing body of research indicates that autonomic function is altered in depression, as evidenced by impaired baroreflex sensitivity, changes in heart rate, and reduced heart rate variability (HRV...

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a non-inflammatory rheumatologic disorder characterized by musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, depression, cognitive dysfunction and sleep disturbance. Research suggests that autonomic dysfunction may account for some of the symptomatology of FM. An open label trial of biofeedback training was conducted to manipulate suboptimal hear...

As we previously reported, resonant frequency heart rate variability biofeedback increases baroreflex gain and peak expiratory flow in healthy individuals and has positive effects in treatment of asthma patients. Biofeedback readily produces large oscillations in heart rate, blood pressure, vascular tone, and pulse amplitude via paced breathing at...

To present additional analysis of data from a previously published study showing that biofeedback training to increase heart rate variability (HRV) can be an effective component in asthma treatment. HRV and intervention-related changes in HRV are negatively correlated with age. Here we assess the effects of age on biofeedback effects for asthma. Te...

We appreciate the interest by Drs. Vaschillo and Lehrer in our Opinions/Hypothesis article (February 2004)¹on respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). We agree with their comment that heartbeat synchronizes with respiratory rhythm only under certain conditions, so that the results of the physiologic experiment are only applicable to the model used in th...

Heart rate variability biofeedback targets the baroreflex system, and thereby helps strengthen one of the body's important self-regulatory reflexes. When people try to increase heart rate variability, they inevitably slow their breathing to about 0.1 Hz, the first resonant frequency of the cardiovascular system. Resonance at that frequency appears...

We evaluated the effectiveness of heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback as a complementary treatment for asthma. Ninety-four adult outpatient paid volunteers with asthma. The psychophysiology laboratory at The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, and the private outpatient offices of participatin...

We evaluated heart rate variability biofeedback as a method for increasing vagal baroreflex gain and improving pulmonary function among 54 healthy adults. We compared 10 sessions of biofeedback training with an uninstructed control. Cognitive and physiological effects were measured in four of the sessions. We found acute increases in low-frequency...

This study describes the use of a biofeedback method for the noninvasive study of baroreflex mechanisms. Five previously untrained healthy male participants learned to control oscillations in heart rate using biofeedback training to modify their heart rate variability at specific frequencies. They were instructed to match computer-generated sinusoi...

Heart rate and blood pressure, as well as other physiological systems, among healthy people, show a complex pattern of variability, characterized by multifrequency oscillations. There is evidence that these oscillations reflect the activity of homeostatic reflexes. Biofeedback training to increase the amplitude of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)...

A therapeutic method includes determining heartbeat and respiratory rates converted in respective electric signals of a subject, displaying the heart rate, spectrally analyzing the respiratory and heartbeat signals, thereby defining a phase shift therebetween, causing the subject to modify the respiratory rate in a sense tending to minimize the pha...

This pilot study compared biofeedback to increase respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) with EMG and incentive inspirometry biofeedback in asthmatic adults. A three-group design (Waiting List Control n = 5, RSA biofeedback n = 6, and EMG biofeedback n = 6) was used. Six sessions of training were given in each of the biofeedback groups. In each of thre...

Bronchial asthma is considered to be a psychosomatic disease in the genesis of which the functional instability of the subcortical brain structures and the autonomic nervous system regulating the cardio-respiratory complex play the principal role. The structural interrelationship of the values of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems in childr...

It is advisable that in the treatment of neurotic patients with marked vegetovascular manifestations, instrumental autotraining may be employed. It includes biomonitoring with pulse rate feedback according to the alternating sinusoidal law. The procedure of the autotraining is described in detail. 10 to 13 sessions of the autotraining given to such...