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Several
cardiovascular disorders (e.g., coronary artery disease and hypertension)
may be preceded or indexed by heightened cardiovascular reactivity to behavioral
stressors. And, it is widely assumed that specific patterns (e.g.,
the magnitude and duration) of cardiovascular stress responses are under
the control of a network of brain regions that jointly support cognitive/affective
processes and autonomic/cardiovascular function. Only a limited
number of studies in humans, however, have evaluated the central control
of cardiovascular reactivity to psychological stressors. In the proposed
study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) will be used to evaluate
a) the correlation between focal brain activation to a standard laboratory
stressor (the Stroop color-word interference task) and corresponding changes
in heart rate and blood pressure and b) central activation differences
between groups of individuals who have previously displayed exaggerated
(n = 13) and attentuated (n = 13) patterns of systolic blood pressure (SBP)
reactivity to a Stroop task. These two groups of volunteers will
be recruited from a subsample of healthy participants of a prior cardiovascular
reactivity experiment, and will range in age from 40 to 70 years.
We expect that the results of this study will enhance our understanding
of the central control of cardiovascular responses to stress and the potential
central mediation of individual differences in cardiovascular stress reactivity.
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