{"doi":"10.1002/smi.3327","title":"Relationship between heart rate variability and differential patterns of cortisol response to acute stressors in mid‐life adults: A data‐driven investigation","abstract":"Cortisol and heart rate variability (HRV) are well-established biomarkers of the human stress response system. While a relationship between cortisol and HRV is assumed, few studies have found evidence of their correlation within single study designs. One complication for isolating such a relationship may lie in individual variability in the cortisol response to stress such that atypical cortisol responding (i.e., elevated or blunted) occurs. To-date, studies on the cortisol response have employed traditional mean-difference-based approaches to examine average magnitude change in cortisol over time. Alternatively, data-driven trajectory modelling, such as latent growth mixture modelling, may be advantageous for quantifying cortisol based on patterns of response over time. Latent growth mixture modelling was used in N = 386 adults to identify subgroups based on trajectories of cortisol responses to stress. The relationship between cortisol and HRV was tested within subgroups. Results revealed a 'prototypical' subgroup characterised by expected rise and fall in cortisol response to stress (n = 309), a 'decline' subgroup (n = 28) that declined in cortisol after stress, and a 'rise' subgroup (n = 49) that increased in cortisol after stress. Within the 'prototypical' subgroup, greater HRV during stress was associated with decline in cortisol after stress from its maximum (r (306) = 0.19, p < 0.001). This relationship failed to emerge in the 'decline' and 'rise' subgroups (p > 0.271). Results document different patterns of cortisol response to stress; among those who exhibit a 'prototypical' response, changes in HRV during stress are related to changes in cortisol after stress.","journal":"Stress and Health","year":2023,"id":346807,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":12,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9568,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":935769,"name":"Carissa W. Tomas","orcid":"0000-0002-9199-8632","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":284504,"name":"Jacklynn M. Fitzgerald","orcid":"0000-0002-6076-4067","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1087677,"name":"Meghan M. Bennett","orcid":"0000-0002-4391-0798","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":49,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:11:53.085356Z","pmid":"37786944","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}