The goal of the current study was to investigate the moderating effect of tonic respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in the relation between childhood maltreatment and depression symptoms among young adults. A total of 98 participants (70 women) aged 17–22 years completed questionnaires on childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms. RSA data were obtained during a resting condition in the laboratory. Results indicated that childhood maltreatment interacted with tonic RSA to predict depressive symptoms, even after controlling for age and body mass index (BMI) of each participant. Specifically, higher levels of childhood maltreatment were associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms, but only among young adults who exhibited lower tonic RSA. The results indicated that the association between childhood maltreatment and depressive symptoms depends on young adults’ physiological functioning/flexibility. Findings suggest that consideration of external environmental factors in combination with internal physiological factors is critical to understand young adults’ mental health.

中文翻译：

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儿童虐待和强直性呼吸窦性心律失常对青少年抑郁症状的交互作用

本研究的目的是调查强直性呼吸性窦性心律失常 (RSA) 在儿童虐待与青少年抑郁症状之间的关系中的调节作用。共有 98 名 17-22 岁的参与者（70 名女性）完成了关于儿童虐待和抑郁症状的问卷调查。RSA 数据是在实验室休息期间获得的。结果表明，即使在控制了每个参与者的年龄和体重指数 (BMI) 之后，儿童期虐待与强直性 RSA 相互作用以预测抑郁症状。具体而言，较高水平的儿童虐待与较高水平的抑郁症状相关，但仅在表现出较低强直性 RSA 的年轻人中。结果表明，童年虐待与抑郁症状之间的关联取决于年轻人的生理功能/灵活性。研究结果表明，结合内部生理因素考虑外部环境因素对于了解年轻人的心理健康至关重要。