Cardiac-sympathetic state predicts action restraint, gated by demonstrated agency
Output Details
Description
Team Strick aims to understand the neural circuits and underlying physiological responses that can facilitate movements under emotionally salient conditions and how they change in PD. In this manuscript, the team studies beat-to-beat cardiac contractility in healthy humans during an incentivized reaching task and shows that cardiac-sympathetic outflow predicts action restraint. Under high-reward conditions that induce a speed–accuracy tradeoff, reduced contractility at the time of instruction preceded premature responses (false starts). Under high-loss-avoidance conditions, elevated pre-movement contractility predicted slower, more controlled initiation, but only among participants with above-median task success. These findings suggest that cardiac-sympathetic engagement does not merely serve mobilization but also flexibly supports context-appropriate action regulation.
Identifier (DOI)
10.64898/2025.12.29.696920
