scholarly journals P075 Multidimensional assessment of interoceptive abilities, emotion processing and the role of early life stress in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S177-S178
Author(s):  
K Atanasova ◽  
T Lotter ◽  
W Reindl ◽  
S Lis

Abstract Background Perception of internal bodily sensations includes three dissociable processes: interoceptive accuracy, interoceptive sensibility, and interoceptive awareness. Interoception plays a crucial role in emotional processing and alterations of these processes have been already observed in gastrointestinal disorders. Although impairments in interoception may contribute to the burden of disease in IBD, no study has investigated interoceptive processing in IBD as a multidimensional concept. The aim of the current study was to investigate the associations between the different dimensions of interoception and emotional processing in IBD, while taking childhood traumatization into account. Methods We recruited 35 remitted IBD patients and 35 healthy control participants (HC) matched for age, sex and education. Interoception was assessed as a multidimensional construct using the Heartbeat tracking task and the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness questionnaire. Emotional processing was measured using an experimental task, where participants were asked to rate the valence and arousal when presented with affective visual stimuli. Childhood traumatization was assessed using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Results IBD patients reported greater awareness of the connection between bodily sensations and emotional states and showed a stronger tendency to use distraction from unpleasant sensations compared with HC. Our findings suggest that emotional processing in IBD is related to interoceptive sensibility and not to the objective interoceptive accuracy. The association between interoception and emotional processing was modulated by the severity of childhood traumatization in both groups. Conclusion This is the first study showing that IBD patients did not differ in their ability to detect visceral signals but in their subjective perception of these. Psychotherapeutic interventions in IBD might profit from taking the interplay between emotion processing, interoception and childhood trauma into account.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantina Atanasova ◽  
Tobias Lotter ◽  
Wolfgang Reindl ◽  
Stefanie Lis

Perception of internal bodily sensations includes three dissociable processes: interoceptive accuracy, interoceptive sensibility, and interoceptive awareness. Interoceptive abilities play a crucial role in emotion processing and impairments of these processes have been reported in several psychiatric disorders. Studies investigating interoceptive abilities and their role in emotional experience in individuals with somatic disorders such as inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are sparse. Recent findings suggested an association between adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and the development of gastrointestinal disorders. The aim of the current study was to investigate the associations between the different dimensions of interoception and emotional processing in IBD while taking ACE into account. We recruited IBD patients in clinical remission (n = 35) and 35 healthy control participants (HC) matched for age, education and IQ. Interoception was measured as a three-dimensional construct. Interoceptive accuracy was assessed with the heartbeat tracking task and interoceptive sensibility with a self-report measure (Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness questionnaire). Emotional processing was measured using an experimental task, where participants were asked to rate the subjectively perceived valence and arousal when presented with positive, neutral and negative visual stimuli. IBD patients significantly differed in two interoceptive sensibility domains, Emotional awareness and Not-distracting. Patients reported greater awareness of the connection between bodily sensations and emotional states, while showing a stronger tendency to use distraction from unpleasant sensations compared with HC. Higher emotional awareness was linked to higher perceived intensity and arousal of negative stimuli. The strength of this relation was dependent on the severity of ACE, with severer traumatization being associated with a stronger association between emotional awareness and perceived valence and arousal. Our findings suggest that it is the subjective component of interoception, especially the one assessing interoceptive abilities within the scope of emotional experience, which affects emotional processing in IBD. This is the first study providing evidence that IBD patients did not differ in their perception of visceral signals per se but only in the subjective ability to attribute certain physical sensations to physiological manifestations of emotions. Our findings support the hypothesis that ACE affect the association between interoception and emotional processing.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateo Leganes-Fonteneau ◽  
Marsha Bates ◽  
Neel Muzumdar ◽  
Anthony Pawlak ◽  
Shahriar Islam ◽  
...  

Interoception, the ability to perceive internal bodily sensations, and heart rate variability (HRV) share common physiological pathways, including the baroreflex feedback loop. The baroreflex can be activated by resonance breathing, wherein respiration is paced at 6 times per minute (0.1Hz), eliciting immediate physiological changes and longer-term therapeutic responses.This registered report characterizes baroreflex functioning as a cardiac mechanism of interoception in a two-session study (n=67). The heartbeat discrimination task was used to obtain indices of interoceptive accuracy, sensibility and metacognition. Baroreflex functioning was measured as HRV at 0.1Hz and baroreflex sensitivity (BRS); high frequency (HF) HRV was calculated as a control. Cardiovascular indices were measured at baseline and during active and control paced breathing after which changes in interoception were measured.The first hypothesis was that baseline baroreflex functioning would predict individual differences in interoceptive awareness. The second hypothesis was that resonance breathing would increase participants’ ability to detect their own heartbeats, and that this effect would be mediated by increases in 0.1Hz HRV and BRS. Data were collected upon in principle acceptance of the manuscript.We found a negative relationship of interoceptive accuracy with baseline HF HRV and BRS, and a positive relationship between metacognitive interoception and 0.1HZ HRV, BRS and HF HRV. We found that changes in 0.1Hz HRV and BRS during resonance breathing positively correlate with increases in interoceptive accuracy. Our results show that the extent to which breathing recruits the resonant properties of the cardiovascular system can facilitate the conscious perception of participants’ heartbeats. We interpret this as an increase in vagal afferent signaling and baroreflex functioning following resonance breathing. We put forward an alternative explanation that HRV modulation can reduce interoceptive prediction errors, facilitating the conscious perception of interoceptive signals, and consider the role of resonance breathing on mental health from an interoceptive inference perspective.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farah Hina ◽  
Jane Aspell ◽  
Flavia Cardini

Previous research using a behavioural measure of interoception demonstrated higher interoceptive accuracy in musicians in comparison to non-musicians (Schirmer-Mokwa (2015). The present study extends this research by comparing additional measures of interoception between the two groups. In addition to the previously assessed heartbeat discrimination task, we used the heartbeat tracking task to measure interoceptive accuracy (IAcc). We also tested two sub-scales from the multidimensional assessment of interoceptive awareness questionnaire to measure interoceptive sensibility (IS) and we recorded an electrophysiological index of interoceptive processing - the heartbeat evoked potential (HEP). The participants comprised musicians (N = 20) and age-matched non-musicians (N = 20). We predicted that musicians would have higher IAcc and IS and would show a greater HEP amplitude than non-musicians. Results showed that musicians had higher IAcc and IS scores than non-musicians and they showed a larger HEP amplitude (in the left hemisphere only). This is the first demonstration of enhanced neural processing of interoceptive signals and interoceptive sensibility in musicians. We suggest that these differences may relate to alterations to insula connectivity as a result of musical training.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia J. Price ◽  
Helen Y. Weng

Emotions are by nature embodied, as the brain has evolved to quickly assess the emotional significance of stimuli and output signals to the body’s viscera and periphery to aid adaptive responses. Emotions involve both implicit bodily and explicit narrative processes, and patients may experience transdiagnostic distress when bodily signals are not attended to and holistically integrated with explicit narratives about experience. Similarly, therapists may be trained in more implicit body-based approaches (i.e., massage/bodywork, physical and occupational therapy, and nursing/medicine) or more explicit narrative-based approaches (i.e., psychotherapy), and may lack training in skills that integrate both levels of emotion processing to aid healing and growth. To address these gaps, we propose a framework where the bridge between implicit bodily sensations and explicit narratives lies in cultivating mindful awareness of bodily sensations associated with emotions. This process brings subjective awareness to notice inner body experience (or interoceptive awareness) that is often outside of conscious awareness, so that it may be understood and re-integrated in more adaptive ways, which we call somatic reappraisal. Using clinical theory and example vignettes, we present mindful interoceptive awareness for adaptive emotion processing as a framework to cultivate and enhance somatic reappraisal. Mindful interoceptive awareness brings more focused and sustained attention to inner body experience; likewise, internal sensations associated with emotions become more granular, vivid, and can shift in ways that facilitate somatic reappraisal. Learning to sustain interoceptive awareness when engaged with mindfulness qualities of nonjudgment and compassion promotes an experience where new associations between emotions, meanings, and memories can be made that generate insights that are holistic and integrative. A clinical vignette is used in this paper to provide examples of this approach in psychotherapy. An example script for use in mindfulness groups is included, and resources are suggested for clinicians to gain more experience. Mindful interoceptive awareness for adaptive emotion processing is a clinical process that can be learned and applied by a range of clinicians to treat mental and physical health conditions that may benefit greater embodied awareness.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateo Leganes-Fonteneau

Interoception, the ability to perceive internal bodily sensations, and heart rate variability (HRV) share common physiological pathways, including the baroreflex feedback loop. The baroreflex can be activated by resonance breathing, wherein respiration is paced at 6 times per minute (0.1Hz), eliciting immediate physiological changes and longer-term therapeutic responses.This registered report characterizes baroreflex functioning as a cardiac mechanism of interoception in a two-session study (n=67). Cardiac Interoceptive awareness was measured using the discrimination task. Baroreflex functioning was measured as HRV at 0.1Hz and baroreflex sensitivity (BRS); high frequency (HF) HRV was calculated as a control. Cardiovascular indices were measured at baseline and during active and control paced breathing after which changes in interoception were measured.The first hypothesis was that baseline baroreflex functioning would predict individual differences in interoceptive awareness. The second hypothesis was that resonance breathing would increase participants’ ability to detect their own heartbeats, and that this effect would be mediated by increases in 0.1Hz HRV and BRS. Data were collected upon in principle acceptance of the manuscript.We found a negative relationship of interoceptive accuracy with HF HRV and BRS at baseline, and a positive relationship between metacognitive interoception and 0.1HZ HRV, BRS and HF HRV. We found that changes in 0.1Hz HRV and BRS during resonance breathing positively correlate with increases in interoceptive accuracy. Our results show that the extent to which breathing recruits the resonant properties of the cardiovascular system can facilitate the conscious perception of participants’ heartbeats. We interpret this as an increase in vagal afferent signaling and baroreflex functioning following resonance breathing. We also put forward an alternative explanation that HRV modulation can reduce interoceptive prediction errors, facilitating the conscious perception of interoceptive signals, and consider the role of resonance breathing on mental health from an interoceptive inference perspective.


2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Meessen ◽  
Verena Mainz ◽  
Siegfried Gauggel ◽  
Eftychia Volz-Sidiropoulou ◽  
Stefan Sütterlin ◽  
...  

Abstract. Recently, Garfinkel and Critchley (2013) proposed to distinguish between three facets of interoception: interoceptive sensibility, interoceptive accuracy, and interoceptive awareness. This pilot study investigated how these facets interrelate to each other and whether interoceptive awareness is related to the metacognitive awareness of memory performance. A sample of 24 healthy students completed a heartbeat perception task (HPT) and a memory task. Judgments of confidence were requested for each task. Participants filled in questionnaires assessing interoceptive sensibility, depression, anxiety, and socio-demographic characteristics. The three facets of interoception were found to be uncorrelated and interoceptive awareness was not related to metacognitive awareness of memory performance. Whereas memory performance was significantly related to metamemory awareness, interoceptive accuracy (HPT) and interoceptive awareness were not correlated. Results suggest that future research on interoception should assess all facets of interoception in order to capture the multifaceted quality of the construct.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorota Reis

Abstract. Interoception is defined as an iterative process that refers to receiving, accessing, appraising, and responding to body sensations. Recently, following an extensive process of development, Mehling and colleagues (2012) proposed a new instrument, the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA), which captures these different aspects of interoception with eight subscales. The aim of this study was to reexamine the dimensionality of the MAIA by applying maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis (ML-CFA), exploratory structural equation modeling (ESEM), and Bayesian structural equation modeling (BSEM). ML-CFA, ESEM, and BSEM were examined in a sample of 320 German adults. ML-CFA showed a poor fit to the data. ESEM yielded a better fit and contained numerous significant cross-loadings, of which one was substantial (≥ .30). The BSEM model with approximate zero informative priors yielded an excellent fit and confirmed the substantial cross-loading found in ESEM. The study demonstrates that ESEM and BSEM are flexible techniques that can be used to improve our understanding of multidimensional constructs. In addition, BSEM can be seen as less exploratory than ESEM and it might also be used to overcome potential limitations of ESEM with regard to more complex models relative to the sample size.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masayasu Shoji ◽  
Wolf E. Mehling ◽  
Martin Hautzinger ◽  
Beate M. Herbert

2021 ◽  
pp. 216770262110164
Author(s):  
Pan Liu ◽  
Matthew R. J. Vandermeer ◽  
Ola Mohamed Ali ◽  
Andrew R. Daoust ◽  
Marc F. Joanisse ◽  
...  

Understanding the development of depression can inform etiology and prevention/intervention. Maternal depression and maladaptive patterns of temperament (e.g., low positive emotionality [PE] or high negative emotionality, especially sadness) are known to predict depression. Although it is unclear how these risks cause depression, altered functional connectivity (FC) during negative-emotion processing may play an important role. We investigated whether maternal depression and age-3 emotionality predicted FC during negative mood reactivity in never-depressed preadolescents and whether these relationships were augmented by early-life stress. Maternal depression predicted decreased medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC)–amygdala and mPFC–insula FC but increased mPFC–posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) FC. PE predicted increased dorsolateral prefrontal cortex–amygdala FC, whereas sadness predicted increased PCC-based FC in insula, orbitofrontal cortex, and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Sadness was more strongly associated with PCC–insula and PCC–ACC FC as early stress increased. Findings indicate that early depression risks may be mediated by FC underlying negative-emotion processing.


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