Representative parameters of respiration and heart rate are shown before, during and after a stress task.

<p>Healthy controls are characterized by an increased heart rate (A) and respiratory rate during the stress task. Cardiac vagal modulation as shown by RSA (C) is decreased while some evidence was found for increased uncoupling of heart rate and breathing rate during the task (D). Boxes indicate data between the 25th and 75th percentile with the horizontal bar reflecting the median (□ = mean; - = 1st and 99th percentile; x = minimum and maximum of data). Significant differences of Bonferoni corrected pair-wise comparisons are indicated: (*) p = .05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001.