The Development of Brain-heart Interplay during Child Affective Experience

The Development of Brain-heart Interplay during Child Affective Experience | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article The Development of Brain-heart Interplay during Child Affective Experience Chen Zhang, Li Wang, Wanze Xie This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8631716/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The brain and heart interact dynamically to support affective experiences, yet how this affectrelated interplay develops throughout childhood remains poorly understood. In this study, we simultaneously recorded EEG and ECG from 148 children aged 5 to 10 years while they viewed movie clips selected to elicit fearful, happy, and neutral emotions. We applied a multi-method approaches to quantify brain-heart interplay: moment-to-moment EEG and ECG coupling, heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEP), and generative modeling of directional influences. We identified distinct age-related patterns. Children aged 5 – 6 years demonstrated stronger EEG-ECG correlations and heightened HEP amplitudes in response to fearful versus neutral movies, but these effects were diminished by 9 – 10 years. Directional modeling further revealed a developmental shift from a predominantly heart-to-brain to brain-to-heart influences with age. These findings collectively indicate that brain–heart interplay during affective experiences undergoes progressive calibration from reactive, sensation-driven mode toward more regulated, cortically integrated processing. Notably, while children’s self-reported affect following the movies became more homogeneous with age, their brain–heart interplay patterns became increasingly diverged, suggesting increasingly individualized neurophysiological pathways underlying the construction of shared affective states. Brain-heart interplay affective experience children interoception Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8631716","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":576309649,"identity":"ea7c7dde-d720-43a2-8220-3c743a6c7b9a","order_by":0,"name":"Chen Zhang","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Peking University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Chen","middleName":"","lastName":"Zhang","suffix":""},{"id":576309650,"identity":"2040b9a8-37fd-457f-b437-e8c84c880fb8","order_by":1,"name":"Li Wang","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAwklEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACPmYwZcMgAaJ4iNHCBtGSRooWCHWYFC3sPIafC36dz5OckcD44G0bg7w5YYfxGEvP7LtdLC2RwGw4t43BcGcDQS28G6R5e24nzpNIYJPmbWNIMDhAWMvm37w950Ba2H8Tq2WbNM+PA4mzgbYwE6mF/5s1b0NysWTPw2bJOeckDDcQ0sLPfyz5Ns8fuzyJ48kHP7wps5EnaAsYMALdAyQbgEwJYtSDwB+QllEwCkbBKBgFOAAA9qE3YnaydYEAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Li","middleName":"","lastName":"Wang","suffix":""},{"id":576309651,"identity":"e7b94d0e-a528-4efa-b83b-efca97e8a2b1","order_by":2,"name":"Wanze Xie","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA20lEQVRIie3QrQrCUBTA8SODWQ6s3oG+wx0XtIh7FWWwNJYXBwsW0aroQ+wRLpxgmVgVi8k0YdEg6OZHvZtN8P7TCefHgQOg0/1wCO3YqIZW3Jyg/JIAsFFDwjdbKgqgjmVfSCAMuqk0ziclycKRswAf7VXoeQi+SKXZ5yrSkwEvNwfIj4EgBBqnEk2mJLuc0w0YuoesIvcGZB84CVRXGIrynKwn7j4XrSn3kWWh56y5J5Zk9pTEngeiuEbkWpMtsTwadmeb5Kwkr54fwvdg1O9/wuarOp1O9189ABJEQa0+1v4FAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Wanze","middleName":"","lastName":"Xie","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-01-18 14:07:06","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":{"humanSubjects":true,"vertebrateSubjects":false,"conflictsOfInterestStatement":false,"humanSubjectEthicalGuidelines":true,"humanSubjectConsent":true,"humanSubjectClinicalTrial":false,"humanSubjectCaseReport":false,"vertebrateSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false},"doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8631716/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8631716/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":100643813,"identity":"11906926-0e2d-4311-8e7f-074f50d3ec13","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-01-20 04:01:23","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":6324155,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"BrainheartinterplaydevelopmentfinalwithSI.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8631716/v1_covered_89eb7cd8-0890-4eda-8a89-c0d31d899fd8.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"The authors declare no competing interests.","formattedTitle":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Development of Brain-heart Interplay during Child Affective Experience\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"Peking University","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Brain-heart interplay, affective experience, children, interoception","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8631716/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8631716/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe brain and heart interact dynamically to support affective experiences, yet how this affectrelated interplay develops throughout childhood remains poorly understood. In this study, we simultaneously recorded EEG and ECG from 148 children aged 5 to 10 years while they viewed movie clips selected to elicit fearful, happy, and neutral emotions. We applied a multi-method approaches to quantify brain-heart interplay: moment-to-moment EEG and ECG coupling, heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEP), and generative modeling of directional influences. We identified distinct age-related patterns. Children aged 5 – 6 years demonstrated stronger EEG-ECG correlations and heightened HEP amplitudes in response to fearful versus neutral movies, but these effects were diminished by 9 – 10 years. Directional modeling further revealed a developmental shift from a predominantly heart-to-brain to brain-to-heart influences with age. These findings collectively indicate that brain–heart interplay during affective experiences undergoes progressive calibration from reactive, sensation-driven mode toward more regulated, cortically integrated processing. Notably, while children’s self-reported affect following the movies became more homogeneous with age, their brain–heart interplay patterns became increasingly diverged, suggesting increasingly individualized neurophysiological pathways underlying the construction of shared affective states.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"The Development of Brain-heart Interplay during Child Affective Experience","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-01-20 03:58:16","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8631716/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"f30bd009-de37-4698-8348-b74dae25a702","owner":[],"postedDate":"January 20th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-01-20T03:58:16+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-01-20 03:58:16","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8631716","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8631716","identity":"rs-8631716","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}