BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Aging Psychiatry
This article is part of the Research TopicBiomarkers in Aging Psychiatry: From Diagnostic Tools to Therapeutic IndicatorsView all articles
Sensory Processing Sensitivity, Anxiety, and Short-Term Heart Rate Variability in Older Adults Living at High Southern Latitudes: A Brief Report
Provisionally accepted
Diego Baeza1
Leyla Huirimilla Casanova1Claudia Estrada2Salvador Buccella1,3
Matías Castillo-Aguilar1,3
Cristian Núñez-Espinosa1,3*- 1Centro Asistencial Docente y de Investigación (CADI-UMAG), Punta Arenas, Chile
- 2Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG), Punta Arenas, Chile
- 3Escuela de Medicina, Universidad de Magallanes (UMAG), Punta Arenas, Chile
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Background: Populations living at high southern latitudes are under-represented in aging and psychophysiology research, despite distinctive environmental stressors (long winters, marked seasonality, isolation). Objectives: To test associations between SPS, anxiety, and HRV in community-dwelling older adults living at high southern latitudes. Methods: We enrolled 101 older adults (mean age 71 years; 72% women) from CADI-UMAG. SPS was measured with the 27-item Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS) and anxiety with the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI, clinical cut-off ≥16). HRV (5-min artifact-free) was recorded at rest and after a 2-min step/knee-raise test. Bayesian hierarchical models (medians, 95% CrI, pd, ROPE, BF10) accounted for within-subject correlation and seasonality. Results: HSPS was positively associated with anxiety: a 1-SD increase in HSPS corresponded to a 0.422-SD increase in BAI. Seasonality showed strong evidence for a null effect (BF10=0.08). BAI showed no meaningful associations with resting HRV indices—RMSSD (BF10=0.046), SDNN (0.200), HF (0.070), LF (0.032), VLF (0.038)—and HSPS did not moderate BAI–HRV links nor HRV responses to exercise (e.g., ΔRMSSD–BAI median 0.003; ROPE=100%). Conclusions: In older adults living at high southern latitudes, SPS appears to be associated with anxiety but not to conventional short-term HRV markers, suggesting SPS may reflects psychological vulnerability rather than parasympathetic dysfunction detectable with brief HRV recordings. These findings highlight the need for context-aware mental-health strategies for highly sensitive older adults in understudied southern populations.
Keywords: Anxiety, Heart rate variability, high sensitivity, older adults, Sensory processing sensitivity
Received: 30 Oct 2025; Accepted: 18 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Baeza, Huirimilla Casanova, Estrada, Buccella, Castillo-Aguilar and Núñez-Espinosa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Cristian Núñez-Espinosa
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