Association between psychological and cardiac functioning in a confined population (C90350).

Related to the MARS500 program (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Mars500/), financed by the European Space Agency (ESA), the study implies research within the context of an international consortium on the effects of long duration confinement and isolation on changes in mood and affect of a crew and on how these changes correlate with fluctuations in cardiac functioning using: 1) psychological questionnaires, 2) 24-hour Holter recordings, 3) methods of heart rate and blood pressure variability, 4) methods of telemedicine/cardiology and 5) neurohumoral assessments. The focus is on changes in mood/affect and the relationship with psychophysiological functioning. Smaller scale studies on the dynamics of emotion and affect outside a confinement context are also planned. Partners within the University of Leuven are the Laboratory of Experimental Cardiology, the Research Group Quantitative Psychology and Individual Differences and the Research Group on Health Psychology.

Keywords:Mood/Affect Changes, Confined population, Cardiac functioning

Disciplines:Psychiatry and psychotherapy, Nursing, Other paramedical sciences, Clinical and counselling psychology, Other psychology and cognitive sciences, Cardiac and vascular medicine