RETRACTED ARTICLE: Variable heart rate and a flexible mind: higher resting-state heart rate variability predicts better task-switching

Abstract

This article was retracted on 31 October 2022

The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this original article following an investigation by Universiteit Leiden providing evidence of manipulated data. The institutional investigation concluded that 6 participants (test subjects) were omitted from the article without adequate or transparent explanation in the article why participants were excluded from the analysis. The main findings of the paper (e.g., correlation between the measure of heart rate variability and switch costs) may not be supported when including the six missing participants.

The neurovisceral integration model proposes that heart rate variability (HRV) is linked to prefrontal cortex activity via the vagus nerve, which connects the heart and the brain. HRV, an index of cardiac vagal tone, has been found to predict performance on several cognitive control tasks that rely on the prefrontal cortex. However, the link between HRV and the core cognitive control function “shifting” between tasks and mental sets is under-investigated. Therefore, the present study tested the neurovisceral integration model by examining, in 90 participants, the relationship between vagally mediated resting-state HRV and performance in a task-switching paradigm that provides a relatively process-pure measure of cognitive flexibility. As predicted, participants with higher resting-state HRV (indexed both by time domain and frequency domain measures) showed smaller switch costs (i.e., greater flexibility) than individuals with lower resting-state HRV. Our findings support the neurovisceral integration model and indicate that higher levels of vagally mediated resting-state HRV promote cognitive flexibility.