Investigation of the relationship between impulse control, emotion regulation, cognitive flexibility and magical ideation in healthy controls and major depression patients

Heart Rate Variability (HRV), which indicates the ability of the heart to adapt, is thought to be related to impulse control, emotion regulation and executive functions. In this study, the aim is to compare healthy controls with people diagnosed with major depression and to investigate the relationships between HRV with impulsivity, emotion regulation difficulties, magical ideation and cognitive flexibility. Thirty participants diagnosed with major depression and 30 healthy controls were included in the study. Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 and Hamilton Depression Scale were administered to all participants and they were asked to fill out Sociodemographic Information Form, Barratt Impulsivity Scale-11, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale and Magical Ideation Scale. In order to measure neurocognitive functions, Trail Making Test, Verbal Fluency Test, Stroop Test TBAG Form and Conners' Continuous Performance Test-3 were applied to all participants. Videos eliciting emotional experiences were shown to participants, holter recordings were taken during and at rest, then the HRV parameters were calculated. There were differences between the groups in the scales related to impulsivity, emotion regulation, magical ideation and in all the cognitive tests. There was no difference between the two groups in terms of HRV parameters recorded at rest and while watching the video that stimulates no emotion (neutral) and videos that stimulate anger and fear. However, it was found that the LF and VLF parameters measured while watching the video stimulating sadness were significantly higher in the major depression group compared to healthy controls. Also, for the major depression group, watching the video that stimulated sadness was associated with an increase in SDNN, LF, VLF and LF/HF parameters. A positive correlation was found between LF and/or VLF parameters recorded when watching the sadness video with the total scores of Hamilton Depression Scale, Barrat Impulsivity Scale-11, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale and Magical Ideation Scale. These results indicate that the adaptive ability of the heart is associated with emotion regulation, impulse control, cognitive flexibility and tendency of magical ideation in the whole sample. Also in major depression; it was concluded that when the feeling of sadness was induced, the adaptive skills of the heart were different from those of healthy controls and that sadness led up to inability to suppress sympathetic activity for in depressed patients.