Habituation of the electrodermal response – A biological correlate of resilience?

Current approaches to quantifying resilience make extensive use of self-reported data. Problematically, this type of scales is plagued by response distortions–both deliberate and unintentional, particularly in occupational populations. The aim of the current study was to develop an objective index of resilience. The study was conducted in 30 young healthy adults. Following completion of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and Depression/Anxiety/Stress Scale (DASS), they were subjected to a series of 15 acoustic startle stimuli (95 dB, 50 ms) presented at random intervals, with respiration, skin conductance and ECG recorded. As expected, resilience (CD-RISC) significantly and negatively correlated with all three DASS subscales–Depression (r = -0.66, p<0.0001), Anxiety (r = -0.50, p<0.005) and Stress (r = -0.48, p<0.005). Acoustic stimuli consistently provoked transient skin conductance (SC) responses, with SC slopes indexing response habituation. This slope significantly and positively correlated with DASS-Depression (r = 0.59, p<0.005), DASS-Anxiety (r = 0.35, p<0.05) and DASS-Total (r = 0.50, p<0.005) scores, and negatively with resilience score (r = -0.47; p = 0.006), indicating that high-resilience individuals are characterized by steeper habituation slopes compared to low-resilience individuals. Our key finding of the connection between habituation of the skin conductance responses to repeated acoustic startle stimulus and resilience-related psychometric constructs suggests that response habituation paradigm has the potential to characterize important attributes of cognitive fitness and well-being–such as depression, anxiety and resilience. With steep negative slopes reflecting faster habituation, lower depression/anxiety and higher resilience, and slower or no habituation characterizing less resilient individuals, this protocol may offer a distortion-free method for objective assessment and monitoring of psychological resilience.