Interoception and emotion

Affective Science

While language and culture influence cognition, their role in shaping pain remains understudied. We tested whether language and cultural identification influence pain report among Spanish-English bilinguals. Eighty bilingual Hispanics/Latinos (40 female) experienced painful thermal stimulations, providing pain intensity and unpleasantness ratings, on separate English and Spanish testing days. Participants' skin conductance responses (SCRs) during stimulations served as measures of physiological arousal. Bilingual participants showed larger SCRs and higher pain intensity when speaking the language congruent with their dominant cultural identification. That is, those endorsing more Hispanic cultural identification showed higher pain in Spanish, while US-American-dominant participants demonstrated increased pain in English. Follow-up moderated mediation demonstrated that SCRs mediated language effects on pain ratings for participants endorsing greater Hispanic cultural identification. Together, our results suggest language, cultural associations, and bodily arousal synergistically influence pain evaluations among bilingual people, potentially contributing to well-documented health disparities between Hispanic and non-Hispanic communities.

Frontiers in Psychology

This opinion article deals with the role of hypnotizability in the efficacy of the suggestions of analgesia for the cognitive control of pain and of its physiological correlates. Hypnotizability is a multimensional trait including suggestibility (Raz, 2007) and other characteristics such as fantasy proneness, attitude to be deeply absorped in specific tasks/mental images (

Affective touch supports affiliative bonds and social cognition. However, it remains unknown whether pre-existing models of social relating influence the perception of affective touch. Here, we present the first study (N=44) to examine how individual differences in attachment styles relate to the perception of affective touch, as well as to a different non-social modality of interoception, namely cardiac perceived accuracy. Using the gold standard assessment of adult attachment (Adult Attachment Interview), we found that insecure attachment was associated with reduced pleasantness discrimination between affective vs. non-affective, neutral touch. Acknowledging the different traditions in measuring attachment, we also used a well-validated self-report questionnaire that pertains to explicit representations of current close relationships. Using this measure, we found that higher scores on an attachment anxiety dimension (but not an attachment avoidance) were associated with reduced pl...

Schizophrenia Bulletin Open

Introduction Although self-disturbances and emotional disturbances are common in schizophrenia, there is no integrated understanding to explain these symptoms. Interoception has a crucial role in the development of self and emotion, and interoceptive abnormality could lead to such symptoms. Methods We compared interoceptive accuracy between controls and patients with schizophrenia. Forty-two patients and 30 healthy controls were recruited and their interoceptive accuracy was assessed using a heartbeat counting task. Participants were instructed to count the number of times they felt their own heartbeat during various measurement periods. Interoceptive accuracy was calculated based on the discrepancy between the number of reported and actual heartbeats during the measurement period. Participants also performed a time estimation task and were instructed to count the number of seconds there were during the same period. Time accuracy was calculated in a similar manner to that for the he...

Frontiers in Psychiatry

Introduction: Sensing body-related information includes interoceptive sensibility (the tendency to focus on internal body sensations) and accuracy (precision in perceiving real internal processes). Interoception and emotion regulation have both been linked to alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, the association between these factors have not been investigated within a clinical group of individuals with AUD. Objectives: The current study examines associations between emotion regulation and interoceptive accuracy and sensibility among individuals with AUD and healthy controls (HCs). Methods: The sample comprised 165 individuals meeting criteria for AUD and 110 HCs. Interoceptive sensibility was assessed with a self-report measure (the Private Body Consciousness subscale) and interoceptive accuracywith a behavioral measure (the Schandry test). Emotion regulation domains: non-acceptance of negative emotions, inability to engage in goal-directed behaviors when experiencing negative emotions, difficulties controlling impulsive behaviors when experiencing negative emotions, limited access to effective emotion regulation strategies, and lack of own emotional awareness and clarity were assessed with the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Associations between interoception and emotion regulation were assessed while controlling for sleep problems, depressive symptoms, age, and sex. Results: Higher interoceptive accuracy was negatively associated with DERS subscale of non-acceptance of negative emotions in the AUD group (but not in the HC group). Higher interoceptive sensibility was significantly associated with problems in controlling impulsive behaviors when experiencing negative emotions. This association was moderated by symptoms of AUD. Higher interoceptive sensibility was associated with higher emotional awareness, but only in the HC group. Conclusions: Individuals with AUD who are more interoceptively accurate may be more effective in regulating their emotions. On the other hand, individuals with AUD who are

Frontiers in Psychology

Children with autism not only have limited social and communicative skills but also have motor abnormalities, such as poor timing and coordination of balance. Moreover, impaired gross motor skills hamper participation with peers. Balance control is interesting from a cognitive science perspective, since it involves a complex interplay between information processing, motor planning, and timing and sequencing of muscle movements. In this paper, we discuss the background of motor problems in children with autism, focusing on how posture is informed by sensory information processing. We also discuss the neurobiological basis of balance problems, and how this is related to anxiety in this group. We then discuss possible avenues for treatment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms, especially as regards movement-related interventions. Finally, we present a theoretical outlook and discuss whether some of the symptoms in ASD can be understood from an embodied cognition perspective.

Frontiers in Psychology

Emotion regulation involves a coherent relationship with the self, specifically effective communication between body, mind, and feelings. Effective emotion regulation involves the ability to accurately detect and evaluate cues related to physiological reactions to stressful events, accompanied by appropriate regulation strategies that temper and influence the emotional response. There is compelling evidence demonstrating links between poor or disrupted awareness of sensory information, or interoceptive awareness, and difficulties with emotion regulation. This paper presents a framework, based on psychological and neurobiological research, for understanding how interoceptive awareness facilitates regulation and an integrated sense of self, and thus contributes to health and well-being. A mind-body therapeutic approach called mindful awareness in body-oriented therapy (MABT), uniquely designed to teach fundamental skills of interoceptive awareness, is described. MABT develops the distinct interoceptive awareness capacities of identifying, accessing, and appraising internal bodily signals that are identified in physiological models as the critical components of interoception for emotion regulation. The explanatory model is that the development of these key interoceptive capacities improves sensory (physical and emotional) awareness, reduces distress, and improves regulation. Strategies for teaching and learning interoceptive awareness are not well-developed in mindfulness or psychotherapeutic approaches, particularly important for people who may have difficulty attending to interoceptive awareness due to stress, chronic pain or trauma. To address this issue, MABT provides an individualized protocol for scaffolding interoceptive awareness through a combination of psychoeducation and somatic approaches explicitly addressing difficulties with interoceptive processing. Clinical vignettes are included to provide exemplars of this approach and to highlight key components of the therapeutic process. Results from research are also included to highlight the acceptability, safety, health outcomes, and possible mechanisms underlying the MABT approach.

NeuroSci

Facial emotion recognition (FER) is extensively investigated in psychological sciences in healthy individuals and clinical conditions. In this paper, we analyzed those studies in which FER was assessed in the case of obesity or fibromyalgia, in relation to the levels of alexithymia. Crucially, these two conditions frequently co-occur; however, no study has explored FER considering both fibromyalgia and obesity. Studies were identified using the electronic search engine of PubMed. The last research was run on 23 July 2021. Two independent lists were generated for the two clinical conditions. Six records were reviewed about obesity, while three records about fibromyalgia. The evidence relative to FER in obesity was not conclusive, whereas the evidence about an altered FER in fibromyalgia seemed more straightforward. Moreover, the role of alexithymia on FER in these clinical conditions was not extensively investigated. In our discussion, we highlighted those factors that should be care...

Frontiers in Psychiatry

Background: Previous research on whether interoception is altered in anorexia nervosa (AN) using the heartbeat tracking task has yielded inconsistent results. However, no previous research has examined whether interoception is associated with alexithymia and autistic traits in AN, conditions which are more prevalent in this population and thought to be related to performance in this task. The aim of this study was to explore whether altered interoception in AN is associated with alexithymia and autistic traits. Methods: We assessed interoceptive accuracy using the heartbeat tracking task in n = 37 people with AN, and n = 37 age and gender matched healthy controls (HC), and explored within the AN group if interoceptive accuracy was related to self-rated alexithymia or autistic traits. We also assessed self-reported interoceptive ability, and the relationship between subjective and actual performance. Results: Heartbeat tracking task performance was not found to be altered in the AN group compared to the HC group. However, confidence ratings in task performance in the AN group were lower compared to the HC group. Unlike the HC group, confidence ratings in the AN group did not correlate with task performance. Within the AN group there was no relationship between interoceptive accuracy, alexithymia, and autistic traits, after controlling for the potential confounders of anxiety and depression. There was a relationship between confidence ratings and illness severity in the AN group. Conclusion: The results found no differences between heartbeat tracking task performance in people with AN compared to HC. There was no association between task performance, alexithymia and autistic traits in AN. Results do suggest that people with AN exhibit lowered confidence in their task performance, and that they may lack insight into this performance compared to HC. The findings are discussed in the context of potential significant limitations of the heartbeat tracking task, with recommendations for future research into interoception in AN.

2021

Background Interoception refers to the body’s physiological responses that occur in response to emotions. This phenomenon influences decision-making, an important cognitive ability that affects the maintenance of an exercise routine. However, it is controversial whether interoception is a reliable measure of an individual’s traits or their response to emotion. Given this evidence, we hypothesized that performing an exercise with positive feelings could improve interoception and that the rational decision-making capabilities acquired by improved interoception would, in turn, help in maintaining an exercise routine. Persistent aerobic exercise is essential for improving cognitive and musculoskeletal function in the long term. Therefore, we aimed to investigate changes in interoception during moderate-intensity aerobic exercise at a level that might potentially improve cognitive function. Methods We devided 48 healthy university students into an exercise group (n = 37) and a control gr...

NeuroSci

I discuss some concepts advanced for the understanding of the complex dynamics of brain functions, and relate them to approaches in affective, cognitive and action neurosciences. These functions involve neuro-glial interactions in a dynamic system that receives sensory signals from the outside of the central nervous system, processes information in frequency, amplitude and phase-modulated electrochemical waves, and control muscles and glands to generate behavioral patterns. The astrocyte network is in charge of controlling global electrochemical homeostasis, and Hodgkin–Huxley dynamics drive the bioelectric homeostasis of single neurons. In elastic processes, perturbations cause instability, but the system returns to the basal equilibrium. In allostatic processes, perturbations elicit a response from the system, reacting to the deviation and driving the system to stable states far from the homeostatic equilibrium. When the system does not return to a fixed point or region of the sta...

European Journal of Health Psychology

Scientific Reports

Physical proximity is important in social interactions. Here, we assessed whether simulated physical proximity modulates the perceived intensity of facial emotional expressions and their associated physiological signatures during observation or imitation of these expressions. Forty-four healthy volunteers rated intensities of dynamic angry or happy facial expressions, presented at two simulated locations, proximal (0.5 m) and distant (3 m) from the participants. We tested whether simulated physical proximity affected the spontaneous (in the observation task) and voluntary (in the imitation task) physiological responses (activity of the corrugator supercilii face muscle and pupil diameter) as well as subsequent ratings of emotional intensity. Angry expressions provoked relative activation of the corrugator supercilii muscle and pupil dilation, whereas happy expressions induced a decrease in corrugator supercilii muscle activity. In proximal condition, these responses were enhanced du...

PLOS ONE

Scientific evidence plays an important role in the therapeutic decision-making process. What happens when physicians are forced to make therapeutic decisions under uncertainty? The absence of scientific guidelines at the beginning of a pandemic due to an unknown virus, such as COVID-19, could influence the perceived legitimacy of the application of non-evidence-based therapeutic approaches. This paper reports on a test of this hypothesis, in which we administered an ad hoc questionnaire to a sample of 64 Italian physicians during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy (April 2020). The questionnaire statements regarding the legitimacy of off-label or experimental drugs were framed according to three different scenarios (Normality, Emergency and COVID-19). Furthermore, as the perception of internal bodily sensations (i.e., interoception) modulates the decision-making process, we tested participants’ interoceptive sensibility using the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoce...

Psychophysiology, 2019

and respiratory sinus arrhythmia in gambling disorder.

Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2020

Recognizing human emotions and responding appropriately has the potential to radically change the way we interact with technology. However, to train machines to sensibly detect and recognize human emotions, we need valid emotion ground truths. A fundamental challenge here is the momentary emotion elicitation and capture (MEEC) from individuals continuously and in real-time, without adversely affecting user experience. In this first edition of the one-day CHI 2020 workshop, we will (a) explore and define novel elicitation tasks (b) survey sensing and annotation techniques (c) create a taxonomy of when and where to apply an elicitation method.

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

Aging is associated with decreased functional connectivity in the main brain networks, which can underlie changes in cognitive and emotional processing. Neurofeedback is a promising non-pharmacological approach for the enhancement of brain connectivity. Previously, we showed that a single session of infra-low frequency neurofeedback results in increased connectivity between sensory processing networks in healthy young adults. In the current pilot study, we aimed to evaluate the possibility of enhancing brain connectivity during aging with the use of infra-low frequency neurofeedback. Nine females aged 52 ± 7 years with subclinical signs of emotional dysregulation, including anxiety, mild depression, and somatoform symptoms, underwent 15 sessions of training. A resting-state functional MRI scan was acquired before and after the training. A hypothesis-free intrinsic connectivity analysis showed increased connectivity in regions in the bilateral temporal fusiform cortex, right suppleme...

Affective Science

Affective states are expressed in an individual's physical appearance, ranging from facial expressions and body postures, to indicators of physiological arousal (e.g., a blush). Confirming the claimed communicative function of these markers, humans are capable of distinguishing between a variety of discrete emotion displays. In an attempt to explain the underlying mechanism, characteristic bodily changes within the observer, including physiological arousal and mimicry, have been suggested to facilitate the interpretation of an expression. The current study aims to create a holistic picture of emotion perception by (1) using three different sources of emotional information (prototypical facial expressions, bodily expressions, and subtle facial cues) and ( ) measuring changes in multiple physiological signals (facial electromyography, skin conductance level, skin temperature, and pupil size). While participants clearly discriminated between perceived emotional expressions, there was no overall 1-1 correspondence with their physiological responses. Some specific but robust effects were observed. Angry facial expressions were consistently responded to with a peak in skin conductance level. Furthermore, sad body expressions were associated with a drop in skin temperature. In addition to being the best recognized expression, viewing happy faces elicited congruent facial muscle responses, which supports the potential role of embodied simulation in emotion recognition. Lastly, tears were not only rated as highly emotional intense but also evoked a peak in skin conductance level in the observer. The absence of distinct physiological responses to other expressions could be explained by the lacking functionality of affect sharing in a non-interactive experimental context. Consequentially, emotional alignment in body and mind might especially take place in real social situations, which should be considered in future research.

Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, 2019

Purpose Difficulties in emotion regulation and deficits in interoceptive awareness may be responsible for overeating and weight gain in obesity by increasing the risks of problematic eating behaviors. This study aimed to: (1) examine emotion regulation difficulties and interoceptive deficits in obesity; (2) compare the emotion regulation and interoceptive abilities of moderately and severely obese patients. Methods Participants were recruited through the university, diabetology centers and bariatric surgery departments. A total of 165 participants were categorized in three groups, matched by age and gender, according to their Body Mass Index (BMI). The severely obese (SO), moderately obese (MO) and normal weight (NW) groups were constituted of 55 participants each. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess emotion regulation difficulties (CERQ-DERS) and interoceptive awareness (MAIA-FFMQ). Results Overall, obese participants reported more emotion regulation difficulties and less interoceptive awareness than NW participants did. They also reported a lack of planning strategies and emotional awareness, as well as less ability to observe, notice and trust body sensations. No differences in emotion regulation and interoceptive abilities were found between MO and SO participants. Conclusions Emotion regulation and interoceptive awareness should be targeted in the psychotherapeutic care of obese people, regardless of their BMI. Level of evidence Level III, case-control analytic study.

Journal of Health Psychology, 2020

This study examined the association between emotional eating, emotion dysregulations, and interoceptive sensibility in 116 patients with obesity by distinguishing an “awareness” and a “reliance” component of interoceptive sensibility. Deficits in interoceptive awareness were only associated with more emotional eating in obesity through less interoceptive reliance and more emotion dysregulations. The results suggest that good interoceptive awareness can increase the risk of emotional eating if not supported by good interoceptive reliance. Interoceptive reliance, like the ability to trust, positively consider, and positively use inner sensations, should be a privileged target of psychotherapeutic interventions in obesity.

Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2020

Pranayama refers to a set of yoga breathing exercises. Recent evidence suggests that the practice of pranayama has positive effects on measures of clinical stress and anxiety. This study explored the impact of a Bhastrika pranayama training program on emotion processing, anxiety, and affect. We used a randomized controlled trial design with thirty healthy young adults assessed at baseline and after 4 weeks of pranayama practices. Two functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) protocols were used both at baseline and post-intervention: an emotion task as well as a resting-state acquisition. Our results suggest that pranayama significantly decreased states of anxiety and negative affect. The practice of pranayama also modulated the activity of brain regions involved in emotional processing, particularly the amygdala, anterior cingulate, anterior insula, and prefrontal cortex. Resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) showed significantly reduced functional connectivity involving the anterior insula and lateral portions of the prefrontal cortex. Correlation analysis revealed that changes in connectivity between the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula were associated with changes in anxiety. Although it should be noted that these analyses were preliminary and exploratory, it provides the first evidence that 4 weeks of B. pranayama significantly reduce the levels of anxiety and negative affect, and that these changes are associated with the modulation of activity and connectivity in brain areas involved in emotion processing, attention, and awareness. The study was registered at https://www.ensaiosclinicos.gov.br/rg/RBR-2gv5c2/(RBR-2gv5c2).

Brain Sciences

The current study investigated the bottom-up experiential emotion regulation in comparison to the cognitiveve top down-approach of cognitive defusion. Rooted in an experiential- and client-centered psychotherapeutic approach, experiential emotion regulation involves an active, non-intervening, accepting, open and welcoming approach towards the bodily felt affective experience in a welcoming, compassionate way, expressed in ‘experiential awareness’ in a first phase, and its verbalization or ‘experiential expression’ in a second phase. Defusion refers to the ability to observe one’s thoughts and feelings in a detached manner. Nineteen healthy participants completed an emotion regulation task during fMRI scanning by processing highly arousing negative events by images. Both experiential emotion regulation and cognitive defusion resulted in higher negative emotion compared to a ‘watch’ control condition. On the neurophysiological level, experiential emotion regulation recruited brain ar...

European Journal of Applied Physiology, 2021

Purpose There is growing evidence that vertebral column function and dysfunction play a vital role in neuromuscular control. This invited review summarises the evidence about how vertebral column dysfunction, known as a central segmental motor control (CSMC) problem, alters neuromuscular function and how spinal adjustments (high-velocity, low-amplitude or HVLA thrusts directed at a CSMC problem) and spinal manipulation (HVLA thrusts directed at segments of the vertebral column that may not have clinical indicators of a CSMC problem) alters neuromuscular function. Methods The current review elucidates the peripheral mechanisms by which CSMC problems, the spinal adjustment or spinal manipulation alter the afferent input from the paravertebral tissues. It summarises the contemporary model that provides a biologically plausible explanation for CSMC problems, the manipulable spinal lesion. This review also summarises the contemporary, biologically plausible understanding about how spinal...

Interoception, the representation of the body’s internal state, serves as a foundation for emotion, motivation, and wellbeing. Yet despite its centrality in human experience, the neural mechanisms of interoception are poorly understood. The Interoceptive/Exteroceptive Attention Task (IEAT) is a novel neuroimaging paradigm that compares behavioral tracking of the respiratory cycle (Active Interoception) to tracking of a visual stimulus (Active Exteroception). Twenty-two healthy participants attended two separate scanning sessions (N=44 scans) during a randomized control trial of Mindful Awareness in Body-oriented Therapy (MABT). Compared to Active Exteroception, Active Interoception led to widespread cortical deactivation. Greater self-reported interoceptive awareness (MAIA scale) predicted sparing from deactivation along the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and left lateral prefrontal cortex. The right insula- typically described as a primary interoceptive cortex- was only specifical...

PLOS ONE, 2022

Interoception is the perception of internal bodily signals. It is considered fundamental to developing emotional awareness. For this reason, interoceptive deficits are often associated with alexithymia, a condition characterized by difficulty identifying feelings (DIF), difficulty describing feelings (DDF), and an externally-oriented style of thinking (EOT). Yet, the atypical interoception found in alexithymia might be of a similar type and/or more serious than those found in other partially overlapping constructs that entail emotional difficulties and behavioural patterns associated with specific emotional styles. Our study explores this issue by examining the relationship between the interoceptive deficits associated with alexithymia and the Big Five personality traits. A non-clinical sample (N = 504) completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Big Five Inventory and the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness. Data were analysed using a network analytic approach that conceives psychological traits as networks of interacting symptoms. The estimated network highlighted that EOT is the alexithymia component least associated with interoception and most associated with lower Openness to Experience. Conversely, DIF and Neuroticism are, respectively, the dimensions of alexithymia and the Big Five most highly associated with interoception. We also compared interoceptive abilities in the four groups of participants whose scores were a) high for both alexithymia and neuroticism, b) high only for alexithymia c), high only for neuroticism, and d) low for both. High alexithymia was especially associated with the tendency to ignore sensations of pain or discomfort, while neuroticism was more indicative of the tendency to worry about these sensations. These results suggest that while high alexithymia and neuroticism share some interoceptive deficits, others are unique to alexithymia and contribute to overall lower interoceptive ability in this condition. Our findings suggest that interventions to enhance awareness of bodily sensations can be beneficial especially for profiles who present high neuroticism and alexithymia.

Journal of Affective Disorders

Background During pregnancy women experience rapid and unique changes in body weight, shape and size over a relatively short time period. While research focused on the role of external bodily modifications during pregnancy, research on internal bodily variations is missing. Methods In a longitudinal study, we recruited healthy pregnant women and measured whether and how depressive symptoms, body image dissatisfaction and the subjective tendency to focus on one's own internal bodily sensations, i.e., interoceptive sensibility, changed during pregnancy and postpartum. Pregnant women filled online self-report questionnaires during pregnancy (i.e. second and third trimester) and after (i.e. six weeks) the delivery, including the Body Areas Satisfaction Scale, the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness, and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Results While depressive symptoms remained stable in the peripartum, body image dissatisfaction increased in the postpartum compared to the pregnancy period, and interoceptive sensibility increased over pregnancy. Findings showed that the increase of body dissatisfaction through the peripartum and the levels of interoceptive sensibility in the early phase of pregnancy predicted depressive symptoms in the postpartum. Limitations Interoception was evaluated as a subjective measure (i.e., interoceptive sensibility). Future studies may include objective measures of interoceptive accuracy and interoceptive awareness. Conclusions The current study supports the importance of body image dissatisfaction and interoceptive sensibility in the development of postpartum depressive symptoms. Future studies need to investigate if interventions aimed to increase interoceptive sensibility might be useful in preventing depressive symptoms and identify the mechanisms that can lead to these changes.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2019

Recently, interoception and homeostasis have been described in terms of predictive coding and active inference. Afferent signals update prior predictions about the state of the body, and stimulate the autonomic mediation of homeostasis. Performance on tests of interoceptive accuracy (IAc) may indicate an individual's ability to assign precision to interoceptive signals, thus determining the relative influence of ascending signals and the descending prior predictions. Accordingly, individuals with high IAc should be better able to regulate during the postprandial period. One hundred females were allocated to consume glucose, an artificially sweetened drink, water or no drink. Before, and 30 min after a drink, IAc, heart rate (HR) and blood glucose (BG) were measured, and participants rated their hunger, thirst and mood. A higher IAc was related to lower BG levels, a decline in anxiety and a higher HR, after consuming glucose. A higher IAc also resulted in a larger decline in hung...

Frontiers in Psychology

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2018

Many leading theories suggest that the neural processes underlying the experience of one's own emotional reactions partially overlap with those underlying bodily perception (i.e., interoception, somatosensation, and proprioception). However, the goal-directed maintenance of one's own emotions in working memory (EWM) has not yet been compared to WM maintenance of one's own bodily reactions (BWM). In this study, we contrasted WM maintenance of emotional vs. bodily reactions to affective stimuli in 26 healthy individuals while they underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging. Specifically, we examined the a priori hypothesis that individual differences in trait emotional awareness (tEA) would lead to greater differences between these two WM conditions within medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). We observed that MPFC activation during EWM (relative to BWM) was positively associated with tEA. Whole-brain analyses otherwise suggested considerable similarity in the neural activation patterns associated with EWM and BWM. In conjunction with previous literature, our findings not only support a central role of body state representation/maintenance in EWM, but also suggest greater engagement of MPFC-mediated conceptualization processes during EWM in those with higher tEA.

Behavioral Sciences

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently show impaired sensory processing in different senses, including the interoceptive system. Recent findings suggest that interoception is a fundamental component of emotional experience and that impaired interoception is associated with alexithymia. This study aims to explore the association and interrelation between interoceptive confusion, alexithymia, and the capacity for emotional regulation among a sample of 33 adults with ASD compared to a control group of 35 adults with neurotypical development and its mutual impact. The participants answered a series of questionnaires addressing these three variables. The results showed (1) significant differences between the groups in all dimensions, with dysfunctional emotional regulation, impaired interoception, and alexithymia in the ASD group, (2) significant correlations between interoceptive confusion, emotional clarity, and alexithymia in the ASD group but only positive correlations...

Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Conducting mental work by interacting with digital technology increases productivity, but strains attentional capacities and mental well-being. In consequence, many mental workers try to cultivate their fow experience. However, this is complex and difcult to achieve. Nevertheless, current technological systems do not yet provide this support in mental work. As interoception, the individual bodily awareness is an underlying mechanism of numerous fow correlates, it might ofer a new approach for fow-supporting systems in these scenarios. Results from a survey study with 176 digital workers show that adaptive regulation of interoceptive sensations correlates with higher levels of fow and engagement. Additionally, regular mindfulness practices improved workers' adaptive regulation of bodily signals. Based on these results and integrating the current literature, this work conceptualizes three future technological support systems, such as interoceptive biofeedback, and electrical or auditory stimulation to enhance interoceptive awareness and foster fow in mental work. CCS CONCEPTS •Human-centered computing •Human computer interaction (HCI) •Empirical studies in HCI

Behavioral Sciences, 2021

The worldwide prevalence of obesity has dramatically increased, mostly in children and adolescents. The Emotional Eating theoretical model has proposed that the failure in emotional regulation could represent a risk factor for establishing maladaptive overeating behavior that represents an inadequate response to negative emotions and allows increasing body-weight. This systematic review investigates the relationship between overeating and both emotional regulation and emotional intelligence in childhood and adolescence, considering both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Moreover, another goal of the review is evaluating whether emotional regulation and emotional intelligence can cause overeating behaviors. The systematic search was conducted according to the PRISMA-statement in the databases Medline, PsychArtcles, PsychInfo, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Sciences, and allows 484 records to be extracted. Twenty-six studies were selected according to inclusion (e.g., studies focu...

Mindfulness, 2022

Objectives The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of a brief body-focused meditation on body ownership, while considering interoceptive abilities, dissociative experiences, mood, trait mindfulness, and meditation experience. Method The sample consisted of 111 healthy students who participated in a randomized controlled trial and either listened to a 20-min meditation or audio-book reading. Before and after the intervention, the rubber hand illusion and a heartbeat detection task were completed. The rubber hand illusion consisted of a synchronous and an asynchronous condition and the illusion intensity was measured using a questionnaire and by assessing the proprioceptive drift. In the heartbeat detection task, participants were instructed to count their heartbeats, so interoceptive accuracy of their counting, confidence in their own abilities (interoceptive sensibility), and the correspondence between both measures (interoceptive awareness) could be determined. Results The intervention type had no effect on mood and interoceptive abilities. Independent of intervention type, valence increased, arousal decreased, and interoceptive accuracy and interoceptive sensibility improved over time. Additionally, trait mindfulness and interoceptive accuracy were negatively related to the subjective rubber hand illusion intensity. There was not a mere effect of the intervention on the rubber hand illusion, but an interaction of synchrony, time, group, and interoceptive awareness was found for both measures, showing that only participants with high interoceptive awareness experienced a weaker illusion following the meditation. Conclusions We concluded that meta-awareness of interoceptive abilities may help protecting oneself against manipulations of the body boundaries. Preregistration Open Science Framework (https:// osf. io/ 6dvh5).

Frontiers in Psychology, 2022

Body awareness refers to the individual ability to process signals originating from within the body, which provide a mapping of the body's internal landscape (interoception) and its relation with space and movement (proprioception). The present study aims to evaluate psychometric properties and validate in French two self-report measures of body awareness: the Postural Awareness Scale (PAS), and the last version of the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness questionnaire (version 2, MAIA-2). We collected data in a non-clinical, adult sample (N = 308; 61% women, mean age 35 ± 12 years) using online survey, and a subset of the original sample (n = 122; 62% women, mean age 44 ± 11 years) also completed the retest control. Factor analyses and reliability analyses were conducted. Construct validity of the PAS and the MAIA-2 were examined by testing their association with each other, and with self-report measures of personality (Big Five Inventory), alexithymia (Toronto Alexithymia Scale) and dispositional trait mindfulness (Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory). Factor analyses of the PAS supported the same two-factor structure as previously published versions (in other languages). For the MAIA-2, factor analyses suggested that a six-factor structure, excluding Not-Worrying and Not-Distracting factors, could successfully account for a common general factor of self-reported interoception. We found satisfactory internal consistency, construct validity, and reliability over time for both the PAS and the MAIA-2. Altogether, our findings suggest that the French version of the PAS and the MAIA-2 are reliable self-report tools to assess both components of body awareness (proprioception and interoception dimension, respectively).

Human Brain Mapping, 2020

Carry-over effects on brain states have been reported following emotional and cognitive events, persisting even during subsequent rest. Here, we investigated such effects by identifying recurring co-activation patterns (CAPs) in neural networks at rest with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We compared carry-over effects on brain-wide CAPs at rest and their modulation after both affective and cognitive challenges. Healthy participants underwent fMRI scanning during emotional induction with negative valence and performed cognitive control tasks, each followed by resting periods. Several CAPs, overlapping with the default-mode (DMN), salience, dorsal attention, and social cognition networks were impacted by both the preceding events (movie or task) and the emotional valence of the experimental contexts (neutral or negative), with differential dynamic fluctuations over time. Temporal metrics of DMN-related CAPs were altered after exposure to negative emotional content (compared to neutral) and predicted changes in subjective affect on self-reported scores. In parallel, duration rates of another attention-related CAP increased with greater task difficulty during the preceding cognitive control condition, specifically in the negative context. These findings provide new insights on the anatomical organization and temporal inertia of functional brain networks, whose expression is differentially shaped by emotional states, presumably mediating adaptive homeostatic processes subsequent to behaviorally challenging events.

Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2019

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often lack cognitive empathy, so they experience difficulty in empathizing with others. Although deficits in social abilities, such as empathy, have been demonstrated in previous studies, most stimuli used in previous studies were developed for typically developing (TD) individuals. Previous studies have demonstrated that adults with and without ASD display empathetic responses toward similar others. Adults with ASD (n = 22, 7 women and 15 men, mean age = 26.8 years) and intelligence-and age-matched TD adults (n = 20, 8 women and 12 men, mean age = 24.0 years) participated in the study. They were instructed to read 24 stories (12 stories featured protagonists with characteristics of ASD, and the other 12 featured TD protagonists) and respond to the following questions: "How did the protagonist feel?" and "Would you help if the protagonist were in trouble?" After controlling for alexithymia and AQ based on multiple regression analyses, individuals with ASD empathize with other people who have ASD and are motivated to help other people with ASD. Additionally, social skills and attention to detail were associated with decreased helping motivation for story characters with ASD. Social skills among AQ subscales (social skills, attention switching, attention to detail, communication, and imagination) were the most potent predictor of decreased helping motivation. These findings suggest that the reason why individuals with ASD are considered to have limited cognitive empathy and helping motivation could be related to alexithymia and the lack of social skills and attention to detail, which are related to atypical perception.

Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity

Purpose Anorexia nervosa (AN) is characterized by a diminished capacity in perceiving the physiological correlates of interoceptive sensations, namely bodily self-consciousness. Given the neural division of self-processing into interoceptive-, exteroceptive- and mental-self, we hypothesize neural deficits in the interoceptive-processing regions in AN. Methods To prove this, we reviewed resting state (rs), task and rest-task studies in AN literature. Results Neuronal data demonstrate the following in AN: (i) decreased rs-functional connectivity (rsFC) of subcortical–cortical midline structures (SCMS); (ii) reduced rsFC between medial (default-mode network/DMN and salience network/SN) and lateral (executive-control network/ECN) cortical regions; (iii) decreased rsFC in mainly the regions of the interoceptive-self; (iv) altered activity with overall increased activity in response to sensory/body image stimuli, especially in the regions of the interoceptive-self; (v) lack of a clear tas...

Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 2021

Objective: There is increasing evidence for a subgroup of major depressive disorder (MDD) associated with heightened peripheral blood inflammatory markers. In this study, the authors sought to understand the mechanistic brainimmune axis in inflammation-linked depression by investigating associations between functional connectivity (FC) of brain networks and peripheral inflammation in depression. Methods: Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and peripheral blood immune marker data (C-reactive protein; CRP, interleukin-6; IL-6 and immune cells) were collected on N=46 healthy controls (HC; CRP ≤ 3mg/L) and N=83 cases of MDD, stratified further into low CRP (loCRP MDD; ≤ 3 mg/L; N=50) and high CRP (hiCRP MDD; > 3 mg/L; N=33). In a two-part analysis, network-based statistics (NBS) was firstly performed to ascertain FC differences via HC vs hiCRP MDD comparison. Association between this network of interconnected brain regions and peripheral CRP (N=83), IL-6 (N=72), neutrophils and CD4+ T-cells (N=36) were then examined in MDD cases only. Results: Case-control NBS testing revealed a single network of abnormally attenuated FC in hiCRP MDD, chiefly comprising default mode network (DMN) and ventral attentional network (VA) coupled regions, anatomically connecting the insula/frontal-operculum and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Across all MDD cases, FC within the identified network scaled negatively with CRP, IL-6, and neutrophils. Conclusions: The findings suggest that inflammation is associated with attenuation of functional connectivity within a brain network deemed critical for interoceptive signalling, e.g. accurate communication of peripheral bodily signals such as immune states to the brain, with implications for the etiology of inflammation-linked depression.

Scientific Reports, 2020

The present randomised placebo controlled trial explored the extent to which osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) affects brain activity, particularly the insula, during both an "interoceptive awareness" and "exteroceptive awareness" task in a sample of 32 right-handed adults with chronic Low Back Pain (CLBP) randomly assigned to either the OMT or sham group. Patients received 4 weekly sessions and fMRI was performed at enrolment (T0), immediately after the first session (T1) and at 1 month (T2). The results revealed that the OMT produced a distinct and specific reduction in BOLD response in specific brain areas related to interoception, i.e., bilateral insula, ACC, left striatum and rMFG. The observed trend across the three time points appears uncharacteristic. At T1, a marginal increase of the BOLD response was observed in all the above-mentioned areas except the rMFG, which showed a decrease in BOLD response. At T2, the response was the opposite: areas related to interoception (bilateral insula and ACC) as well as the rMFG and left striatum demonstrated significant decreased in BOLD response. The findings of this study provide an insight into the effects of manual therapies on brain activity and have implications for future research in the field. The interaction between the sense of touch and the body is a well recognised process that takes place at different neural levels, with different effects and mechanisms of action. In the brain, the effect of this interaction produces different mental representations or experiences-also called feelings-of the body 1. These include inputs from the physiological milieu of the body in terms of metabolic, structural and functional conditions at any given moment, a concept referred to as interoception 2. Those feelings can be modulated by different stimuli and sources, including touch, ultimately modifying the perception of the internal and external world 3. Several neurobiological studies posed that the insula (INS) is a critical hub for multimodal interoceptive integration, involved in interoceptive processes, such as awareness of sensations from the body 4 , but also exteroceptive elements, such as perception of pain 5,6 , taste 7-10 , smell 11 , and touch 12. In fact, external stimuli, i.e. pain, smell or taste, serve as body-mapped signals of the so-called peripersonal space [that is the space immediately surrounding the body] 13,14. Moreover, in the anterior insula exteroceptive and interoceptive information overlap with emotional domains 11 , suggesting an underlying commonality 15. In fact, the insula has been referred as a meeting point between external and internal milieus 16-19. Detailed reviews of the interoceptive evidence are available elsewhere 2,3,20. Methods to measure interoceptive differences comprise the use of questionnaires and behavioural tests that either exploit natural fluctuations in internal physiological signals or manipulate organ physiology experimentally 21,22. For practical reasons, heartbeat detection tasks are measures largely utilised to assess differences among individuals regarding interoceptive accuracy and ability 23-25. These tests quantify an individual's ability to distinguish his own heartbeat at rest, by counting, tapping or by judging heartbeat timing relative to an external

Psychological Research, 2018

This study investigated the structure of social cognition, and how it is influenced by personality; specifically, how various socio-cognitive capabilities, and the pattern of interrelationships and co-dependencies among them differ between divergent personality styles. To measure social cognition, a large non-clinical sample (n = 290) undertook an extensive battery of self-report and performance-based measures of visual perspective taking, imitative tendencies, affective empathy, interoceptive accuracy, emotion regulation, and state affectivity. These same individuals then completed the Personality Styles and Disorders Inventory. Latent Profile Analysis revealed two dissociable personality profiles that exhibited contrasting cognitive and affective dispositions, and multivariate analyses indicated further that these profiles differed on measures of social cognition; individuals characterised by a flexible and adaptive personality profile expressed higher action orientation (emotion regulation) compared to those showing more inflexible tendencies, along with better visual perspective taking, superior interoceptive accuracy, less imitative tendencies, and lower personal distress and negativity. These characteristics point towards more efficient self-other distinction, and to higher cognitive control more generally. Moreover, low-level cognitive mechanisms served to mediate other higher level socio-emotional capabilities. Together, these findings elucidate the cognitive and affective underpinnings of individual differences in social behaviour, providing a data-driven model that should guide future research in this area.

Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 2021

Fatigue is a common experience in both health and disease. Yet, pathological (i.e., prolonged or chronic) and transient (i.e., exertional) fatigue symptoms are traditionally considered distinct, compounding a separation between interested research fields within the study of fatigue. Within the clinical neurosciences, nascent frameworks position pathological fatigue as a product of inference derived through hierarchical predictive processing. The metacognitive theory of dyshomeostasis (Stephan et al., 2016) states that pathological fatigue emerges from the metacognitive mechanism in which the detection of persistent mismatches between prior interoceptive predictions and ascending sensory evidence (i.e., prediction error) signals low evidence for internal generative models, which undermine an agent's feeling of mastery over the body and is thus experienced phenomenologically as fatigue. Although acute, transient subjective symptoms of exertional fatigue have also been associated with increasing interoceptive prediction error, the dynamic computations that underlie its development have not been clearly defined. Here, drawing on the metacognitive theory of dyshomeostasis, we extend this account to offer an explicit description of the development of fatigue during extended periods of (physical) exertion. Accordingly, it is proposed that a loss of certainty or confidence in control predictions in response to persistent detection of prediction error features as a common foundation for the conscious experience of both pathological and nonpathological fatigue.

bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), 2021

The adaptive regulation of bodily and interoceptive parameters, such as body temperature, thirst and hunger is a central problem for any biological organism. Here, we present a series of simulations using the framework of Active Inference to formally characterize interoceptive control and some of its dysfunctions. We start from the premise that the goal of interoceptive control is to minimize a discrepancy between expected and actual interoceptive sensations (i.e., a prediction error or free energy). Importantly, living organisms can achieve this goal by using various forms of interoceptive control: homeostatic, allostatic and goal-directed. We provide a computationally-guided analysis of these different forms of interoceptive control, by showing that they correspond to distinct generative models within Active Inference. Furthermore, we illustrate how these generative models may support empirical research, by predicting physiological and brain signals that may accompany both adaptive and maladaptive interoceptive control.

bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory), 2022

Blind individuals have superior abilities to perform perceptual tasks that rely on exteroceptive information, since visual deprivation is associated with massive cross-modal plasticity. However, it is unknown whether neuroplasticity after visual loss also affects interoception, i.e., the sensations arising from one's inner organs that convey information about the physiological state of the body. Herein, we examine the influence of blindness on cardiac interoception, which is an interoceptive submodality that has important links to emotional processing and bodily self-awareness. We tested 36 blind and 36 age-and sex-matched sighted volunteers and examined their cardiac interoceptive ability using a well-established heartbeat counting task. The results showed that blind individuals had significantly higher accuracy in perceiving their heartbeat than did individuals in a matched sighted control group. In contrast, there were no significant differences between the groups in the metacognitive dimensions of cardiac interception or the purely physiological measurement of heart rate, thereby underscoring that the improved accuracy likely reflects a superior perceptual sensitivity to cardiac interoceptive signals in blind individuals. We conclude that visual deprivation leads to enhanced interoception, which has important implications for the study of the extent of massive crossmodal plasticity after visual loss, understanding emotional processing in blind individuals, and learning how bodily self-awareness can develop and be sustained in the absence of visual experience. .

Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports, 2021

Purpose of Review Self-awareness, the capacity of becoming the object of one's own awareness, has been a frontier of knowledge, but only recently scientific approaches to the theme have advanced. Self-awareness has important clinical implications, and a finer understanding of this concept may improve the clinical management of people with dementia. The current article aims to explore self-awareness, from a neurobiological perspective, in dementia. Recent Findings A taxonomy of self-awareness processes is presented, discussing how these can be structured across different levels of cognitive complexity. Findings on self-awareness in dementia are reviewed, indicating the relative preservation of capacities such as body ownership and agency, despite impairments in higher-level cognitive processes, such as autobiographical memory and emotional regulation. Summary An integrative framework, based on predictive coding and compensatory abilities linked to the resilience of selfawareness in dementia, is discussed, highlighting possible avenues for future research into the topic.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2018

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Psychopharmacology, 2022

Rationale Interoception is the signalling, perception, and interpretation of internal physiological states. Many mental disorders associated with changes of interoception, including depressive and anxiety disorders, are treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). However, the causative link between SSRIs and interoception is not yet clear. Objectives To ascertain the causal effect of acute changes of serotonin levels on cardiac interoception. Methods Using a within-participant placebo-controlled design, forty-seven healthy human volunteers (31 female, 16 male) were tested on and off a 20 mg oral dose of the commonly prescribed SSRI, citalopram. Participants made judgements on the synchrony between their heartbeat and auditory tones and then expressed confidence in each judgement. We measured three types of interoceptive cognition. Results Citalopram increased cardiac interoceptive insight, measured as correspondence of self-reported confidence to the likelihood that interoceptive judgements were actually correct. This effect was driven by enhanced confidence for correct interoceptive judgements and was independent of measured cardiac and reported subjective effects of the drug. Conclusions An acute change of serotonin levels can increase insight into the reliability of inferences made from cardiac interoceptive sensations.

Brain Sciences

Traditional cognitive linguistic theories acknowledge that human emotions are embodied, yet they fail to distinguish the dimensions that reflect the direction of neural signaling between the brain and body. Differences exist across languages and cultures in whether embodied emotions are conceptualized as afferent (feelings from the body) or efferent (enacted through the body). This important distinction has been neglected in academic discourse, arguably as a consequence of the ‘lexical approach’, and the dominance within the affective psychology of the cognitive and semantic models that overlook the role of interoception as an essential component of affective experience. Empirical and theoretical advances in human neuroscience are driving a reappraisal of the relationships between the mind, brain and body, with particular relevance to emotions. Allostatic (predictive) control of the internal bodily states is considered fundamental to the experience of emotions enacted through intero...

Scientific Reports

Interoception, the sense of the internal physiological state of the body, theoretically underpins aspects of self-representation. Experimental studies link feelings of body ownership to interoceptive perception, yet few studies have tested for association between the sense of agency and interoceptive processing. Here, we combined an intentional binding paradigm with cardiac measures of interoceptive processing (behavioural performance on a heartbeat discrimination task, and effects of timing within the cardiac cycle) in twenty-six non-clinical participants as an exploratory study. We found performance accuracy on the heartbeat discrimination task correlated positively with the intentional binding effect, an index of sense of agency (β = 0.832, p = 0.005), even after controlling for effects of age, sex, educational level, heart rate, heart rate variability and time accuracy. The intentional binding effect was enhanced during cardiac systole (compared to diastole) in individuals with ...

Frontiers in Psychiatry, 2020

Visceroception is a complex phenomenon comprising the sensation, interpretation, and integration of sensations along the gut-brain axis, including pain or defecatory urgency. Stress is considered a crucial risk factor for the development and maintenance of disorders of gut-brain signaling, which are characterized by altered visceroception. Although the broad role of stress and stress mediators in disturbed visceroception is widely acknowledged, the putative contribution of chronic stress to variations in normal visceroception remains incompletely understood. We aimed to elucidate the role of chronic stress in shaping different facets of visceroception. From a well-characterized, large sample of healthy men and women (N = 180, 50% female), volunteers presenting with low (n = 57) and elevated (n = 61) perceived chronic stress were identified based on the validated Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress (TICS). Visceral sensitivity together with perceived and recalled intensity and defecatory urgency induced by repeated rectal distensions was experimentally assessed, and compared between low and elevated stress groups. Subgroups were compared regarding state anxiety and salivary cortisol concentrations across experimental phases and with respect to psychological measures. Finally, in the full sample and in chronic stress subgroups, a recall bias in terms of a discrepancy between the perception of experimentally-induced symptoms and their recall was tested. Participants with elevated chronic stress presented with increased state anxiety and higher cortisol concentrations throughout the experimental phases compared to the group with low chronic stress. Group differences in visceral sensitivity were not evident. The elevated stress group perceived significantly higher urgency during the stimulation phase, and recalled substantially higher feelings of urgency induced by rectal distensions, while perceived and recalled intensity were comparable between groups. Volunteers with elevated stress exhibited a recall bias in terms of a higher recall relative to mean perception of urgency, whereas no such bias was observed for the intensity of