Stephen Porges - Major Accomplishments

Major Accomplishments

• The first to quantify and use heart rate variability both as response and individual difference variable in psychophysiological research.
• Pioneer in developmental psychophysiology –one of the first to use autonomic measures to investigate the “psychological” world including studies of attention and autonomic conditioning in the newborn infant.
• Introduced respiratory sinus arrhythmia as index of vagal function to the area of psychophysiology.
• Developed a statistic to describe the covariation of two periodic signals when they vary across a band of frequencies (i.e., weighted coherence).
• First to apply measures of respiratory sinus arrhythmia as an index of depth of anesthesia and as a measure of neural function in critical care medicine.
• Demonstrated that early measures of respiratory sinus arrhythmia were related to clinical course in preterm and full term newborns.
• Developed a unique method to dynamically measure periodic components of heart rate variability when the components are superimposed on a nonstationary baseline; method received a patent and is used in approximately 200 laboratories worldwide; 1985, awarded patent.
• Proposed the Polyvagal Theory that is based on the phylogeney of the vertebrate autonomic nervous system. The theory led to discovery of three phylogenetically ordered neural circuits regulating autonomic nervous system. The newest circuit reflects unique face-heart connections which forms a functional “social engagement system” involving an integrated regulation in the brainstem of the striated muscles of the face and head with a mammalian myelinated vagus. The theory also proposes that the older vagal circuit is involved in death feigning and the shutdown behaviors often observed in response to life-threat.