Cardiovascular psychophysiology

Both environmental and predispositional factors are of importance in the pa thogenesis of cardiovascular (CV) disease. In humans, it is difficult to ch aracterize the pathogenic environmental factors (exposures) because of the long time-span of pathogenesis. Perceived effort, control, social isolation , and absence of reward seem to increase the risk of CV diseases. It is met hodologically easier to measure predispositional factors at one point in ti me and then record disease after some years; and there are several reports of associations between personality traits or behaviour patterns and CV dis ease. Recent psychophysiological research has focused on CV hyper-reactivit y to challenge. Hyperreactivity seems to be common in the offspring of hype rtensives. This relation may be psychophysiological rather than physiologic al. Several questions remain regarding the validity and reliability of the hyper-reactivity construct. Studies of social hierarchies in animals have s hown that social interactions produce pronounced psychophysiological respon ses. The existence of several differentiated CV response patterns may expla in the contradictory findings of studies that only measure one or few physi ological parameters. Predisposition to behaviours and reactivity of physiol ogical systems may be accentuated by dominance-subordinate interactions. Th e availability of control and the perception of mastery is crucial in termi nating responding to stressors. The presence of relatively constant respons e patterns to social interactions suggests that social interactions must be taken into account. Focus of CV psychophysiology should shift to studies o f behavioural and somatic responses during social interactions.