Min, Jungwon; Liu, Gengshuo; Dahl, Martin J.; Lee, Tae-Ho; Nashiro, Kaoru; Yoo, Hyun Joo; Cho, Christine; Bogdan, Paul; Chang, Catie; Lehrer, Paul M.; Thayer, Julian F.; Mather, Mara. (2026). . Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 21(1), nsag054.
The brain and autonomic nervous system, which controls automatic functions such as heart rate, continuously communicate with each other. However, it is often unclear whether specific brain regions are responding to signals from the body or sending signals that influence the body. Using brain imaging and heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of changes in the time between heartbeats, this study examined brain鈥揾eart communication in younger and older adults during emotion regulation and rest. During emotion regulation, activity in the insula and cingulate cortex was associated with lower HRV. During rest, several brain regions, including the posterior insula, responded after decreases in HRV, suggesting that they receive information related to changes in the body. In contrast, activity in the anterior insula and cingulate cortex occurred before increases in HRV, suggesting a role in sending signals that influence heart activity. The results support a possible feedback loop in which decreased HRV activates brain regions that receive bodily signals, which then activate regions involved in regulating HRV. This pattern also differed with age, as the brain regions involved in receiving and sending signals were more distinct in younger adults but overlapped more in older adults. These findings provide insight into how the brain and heart coordinate and how this communication may change with aging.
Figure 1
Two types of RMSSD time series paired with whole-brain BOLD signals. Modeling individual BOLD time series at TR with RMSSD time series over two 10-second windows before and after TRs allows us to investigate bidirectional relationships between RMSSD and brain BOLD activity. By correlating at-TR BOLD signals with before-TR RMSSD while accounting for after-TR RMSSD, we can examine how changes in RMSSD influence changes in BOLD activity. Likewise, by correlating at-TR BOLD signals with after-TR RMSSD while accounting for before-TR RMSSD, we can investigate how changes in RMSSD are influenced by changes in BOLD activity.