In recent years, increasing interest has been devoted to the physiological basis of self and other-oriented compassion. Heart rate variability (HRV) represents a promising candidate for such a role, given its association with soothing emotions and context appropriate prefrontal inhibitory control over threat-defensive responses. The aim of this study was to meta-analyze available studies on the association between compassion and HRV. Random-effect models were used. The analysis performed on sixteen studies that met inclusion criteria, yielded a significant association with a medium effect size (g = .54 95% CI [.24, .84], p < .0001). Results were not influenced by publication bias. After an extreme outlier’s exclusion, the size of the association was still larger in studies that used time or frequency-domain indices of vagally-mediated HRV compared to those that used peak to trough estimates of respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Results are limited by the small number of studies included in the meta-analysis (n = 16) and are discussed in terms of indications for future research, given that existing data are highly heterogeneous and of poor methodological rigor.

近年来，人们越来越关注自我和其他定向同情的生理基础。考虑到它与舒缓的情绪和对威胁防御反应的适当前额抑制控制相关联，心率变异性（HRV）代表了这种作用的前景广阔。这项研究的目的是对有关同情与HRV之间关联的现有研究进行荟萃分析。使用随机效应模型。对16项符合纳入标准的研究进行了分析，得出的结果与中等效应量显着相关（g = .54 95％CI [.24，.84]，p <.0001）。结果不受出版偏见的影响。在排除了极端异常值之后，与使用峰值介导的呼吸窦性心律不齐的研究相比，使用阴道介导的HRV的时域或频域指数的研究的关联性规模仍然更大。结果受限于荟萃分析中的研究数量少（n = 16），并且鉴于现有数据高度异质且方法严格性较差，因此讨论了对未来研究的指征。