Effects of interoceptive accuracy in autonomic responses to external stimuli based on cardiac rhythm

Interoceptive accuracy is an index of the ability to perceive an individual’s internal bodily state, including heartbeat and respiration. Individual differences in interoceptive accuracy influence emotional recognition through autonomic nervous activity. However, the precise mechanism by which interoceptive accuracy affects autonomic reactivity remains unclear. Here, we investigated how cardiac reactivity induced by a non-affective external rhythm differed among individuals, using a heartbeat counting task. Because individuals with poor interoceptive accuracy cannot distinguish an external rhythm from their cardiac cycles, it has been hypothesized that the interoceptive effect on heart rate works differently in individuals with good interoceptive accuracy and those with poor interoceptive accuracy. Study participants observed a visual or auditory stimulus presented at a rhythm similar to the participants’ resting heart rates. The stimulus rhythm was gradually changed from that of their resting heart rate, and we recorded electrocardiographs while participants were exposed to the stimuli. Individuals with good interoceptive accuracy exhibited a deceleration in heart rate when the rhythm of the auditory stimulus changed. In contrast, in the group with poor interoceptive accuracy, the heart rate decreased only when the stimulus became faster. They were unable to distinguish the rhythm of their own heartbeat from that of the external rhythm; therefore, we propose that such individuals recognize the stimuli at the pace of their heart rate. Individuals with good interoceptive accuracy were able to distinguish their heart rates from the external rhythm. A modality difference was not observed in this study, which suggests that both visual and auditory stimuli help mimic heart rate. These results may provide physiological evidence that autonomic reactivity influences the perception of the internal bodily state, and that interoception and the autonomic state interact to some degree.

Pre-stimulus fluctuations in heart-synchronised neural activity predict subsequent self-association with affective stimuli

We frequently associate ourselves with certain affective attributes (e.g., I am joyful, I am lazy, etc.) and not others. However, little is understood about how such self-associations come about. Interoceptive predictive theories propose that a sense of self, especially in an affective context, results from the brain making inferences about internal bodily states. A key prediction of these theories is that for an affective attribute to be self-associated, it would depend not only on the stimulus, but also non-stimulus-specific fluctuations in one’s bodily state; a hypothesis not yet tested. We measured EEG response synchronised to the cardiac cycle – a common way to measure interoceptive neural processing – prior to the presentation of pleasant and unpleasant adjectives to participants. Participants responded if the adjectives were self-descriptive or not. We found that cardiac-pulse-synchronised neural activity prior to the presentation of unpleasant adjectives predicted whether participants subsequently associated that adjective to themselves. This effect was observed over midfrontal scalp locations, commonly observed in interoceptive neural processing. No such effect was observed for pleasant adjectives, or by randomly shuffling the cardiac peak times to account for non-interoceptive neural differences. Our results confirm a key prediction of interoceptive predictive coding theories – that bodily signals are not just modulated in response to self-related and affective arousal, but that a subjective sense of affective self arises due to neural processing of bodily signals. Our results have important implications for many neuropsychiatric disorders that involve altered self-referential processing of unpleasant stimuli.

Elements of Sensory-Emotional Experience as an Integral Part of Forming Visual Meanings: the Role of Conceptual Abilities

Background. This article analyzes the relationship between sensory-emotional experience inthe process of semantic description of vague visual figures,and the level of conceptual (categorical and generative) abilities. Objective. The objective of our study was, first, to show the differences in the degree and features of activation of elements of sensory-emotional experience in the process of constructing the meanings of vague visual figures; and, second, to show the relationship of these differences with the level of categorical and generative abilities. Design.We studied 102 older adolescents ages 15-16 years. The research program included the following methods: 1) "Description of vague figures" (E.Yu. Artemyeva's technique change,1980; 1999); 2) "Generalization of three words" (Kholodnaya, 2012; Kholodnaya et al., 2019); and 3) "Conceptual synthesis" (Kholodnaya, 2012; Kholodnaya et al., 2019). Results. Our results showed that generative abilities play the leading role in determining the degree of severity and diversity of different modalities in forming visual meanings, as compared with categorical abilities. The transition simulation hypothesis explains the results. However, the embodied character of mental modeling (simulation) is not determined “bottom-up” by the individual’s bodily state or the activity of corresponding brain zones. On the contrary, conceptual (namely, generative) structures determine the form of the conceptual representations from the "top down." Conclusion. Generative abilities represent the highest level of organization of personal conceptual experience, which acquires a multimodal quality, due to the integral nature of conceptual (generative) structures.

Out of Body, Loss of Self: Spiritual or Scary?

The main aim of the present study is to investigate when “loss of self” results in scaredness or anxiety during or after an out-of body-experience (OBE). An OBE is an intense form of (bodily) self loss in which people have the impression that their self is located outside their body. In a sample of respondents reporting to have had an OBE (n = 171), anxiety and different conceptualizations of “self loss” were assessed. In addition, questions were asked about meaning making processes after the OBE. Results show that there was no relationship between anxiety and self loss with a relational component (i.e., mystical experiences, positive spiritual experiences). However, there was significantly more anxiety in respondents who (1) (have) experience(d) ego loss/deconstruction, (2) have difficulties to (re)turn their attention to an internal bodily state (low mindfulness) and/or (3) experience a lack of self-concept clarity. Respondents who did not succeed in making sense of their OBE experience more anxiety, more ego loss/deconstruction, lower mindfulness and higher self-unclarity. Finally, the article examines how respondents explain their OBE (by using, for instance, medical, spiritual or psychological explanations) and how and why respondents do (not) succeed in making sense of the OBE.

Measuring Interoception: The Phase Adjustment Task

Background: Interoception, the perception of one’s internal bodily state, has been repeatedly linked to mental health, and atypical interoception proposed as a transdiagnostic risk factor. Despite the clinical importance of interoception, existing measures are suboptimal as they are susceptible to physiological and psychological confounds. Furthermore, existing measures are lab-based, limiting both scalability and accessibility.Methods: Here we describe a novel measure, the Phase Adjustment Task (PAT), administered via smartphone. During the task tones are presented at the participant’s heartrate (recorded via smartphone camera), but out of phase with heartbeats. Participants are required to adjust the phase relationship between tones and heartbeats until they are synchronous.Results: Data from 124 participants indicates both variance in performance across participants and that performance is not affected by physiological or strategic variables. Furthermore, results are consistent with previous data on the temporal characteristics of cardiac interoception. Conclusions: Given its validity, accessibility and scalability, the PAT task is suitable for large-scale clinical interoception research.

Breathing affects self-other voice discrimination in a bodily state with increased otherness

A growing number of studies have focused on identifying cognitive processes that are modulated by interoceptive signals. Here we investigated whether interoception affects self-processing, by assessing changes in self-voice perception as a function of respiratory and cardiac cycles. Considering the fundamental role interoception plays in bodily self-consciousness, we additionally applied conflicting sensorimotor stimulation inducing a state characterized by a loss of self and increased otherness, and investigated its effects in self-other voice perception. Our data reveal that breathing, but not heartbeat, affects self-voice perception, by showing that participants (N = 30) discriminated self-voice from other voices better during inspiration, while being in the state of increased otherness and especially when hearing voices of other people. Loudness judgement of equivalent self-related stimuli was unaffected by breathing. Combining interoception and voice perception with self-monitoring framework, these data extend recent findings on breathing-dependent cognition to self-processing.

My-body-for-others or my-body-for-itself? Reflections on my encounter with the art of striptease and the way it has transformed the relationship I have with my body

My body-for-others or my body-for-itself? This is the question explored in this article. It is centred on my experience as a performer, student, and observer of the art of striptease and how my engagement with this art has facilitated for me a process of transition from the body-for-others—a bodily state characterised by a profound sense of scrutiny, loss, invisibility, and isolation—to the-body-for-itself, which, by contrast, is enriched by self-discovery and self-celebration and moves freely and sensually towards the world and others. The article discusses the process through which, in the context of our tenaciously restrictive visual culture, striptease can lead to a deeper intimacy between the performer and his or her body and to a greater capacity for bodily expression and fulfilment. It considers the role that loss and lust play in this process, as well as the healing and transformative power of eros. This article employs a combination of memoir and scholarly analysis. Diary entries, memories, and reflections are used to evoke the essence of this experience and to offer the reader a phenomenological grasp of striptease. Existential ideas, particularly those of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, provide a framework to articulate and conceptualise its potentially transforming power while also capturing the complexities and ambiguities of my engagement with this art.

Acquisition of Ownership Illusion with Self-Disownership in Neurological Patients

The multisensory regions in frontoparietal cortices play a crucial role in the sense of body and self. Disrupting this sense may lead to a feeling of disembodiment, or more generally, a sense of disownership. Experimentally, this altered consciousness disappears during illusory own-body perceptions, increasing the intensity of perceived ownership for an external virtual limb. In many clinical conditions, particularly in individuals with a discontinuous or absent sense of bodily awareness, the brain may effortlessly create a convincing feeling of body ownership over a surrogate body or body part. The immediate visual input dominates the current bodily state and induces rapid plastic adaptation that reconfigures the dynamics of bodily representation, allowing the brain to acquire an alternative sense of body and self. Investigating strategies to deconstruct the lack of a normal sense of bodily ownership, especially after a neurological injury, may aid the selection of appropriate clinical treatment.

Perception and misperception of bodily symptoms from an Active Inference perspective: Modelling the case of panic disorder.

We advance a novel computational model that characterizes formally the ways we perceive or misperceive bodily symptoms, in the context of panic attacks. The computational model is grounded within the formal framework of Active Inference, which considers top-down prediction and attention dynamics as key to perceptual inference and action selection. In a series of simulations, we use the computational model to reproduce key facets of adaptive and maladaptive symptom perception: the ways we infer our bodily state by integrating prior information and somatic afferents; the ways we decide whether or not to attend to somatic channels; the ways we use the symptom inference to make decisions about taking or not taking a medicine; and the ways all the above processes can go awry, determining symptoms misperception and ensuing maladaptive behaviors, such as hypervigilance or excessive medicine use. While recent existing theoretical treatments of psychopathological conditions focus on prediction-based perception (predictive coding), our computational model goes beyond them, in at least two ways. First, it includes action and attention selection dynamics that are disregarded in previous conceptualizations but are crucial to fully understand the phenomenology of bodily symptoms perception and misperception. Second, it is a fully implemented model that generates specific (and personalized) quantitative predictions, thus going beyond previous qualitative frameworks.