Search results for "interoception"

Somatic Symptom Perception and Interoception

2020

Abstract. Models of chronic somatic symptoms assume that abnormalities in interoception are related to the development and maintenance of symptom distress. Different models, however, disagree on the exact nature of the assumed abnormality: cognitive-behavioral models stress a hypervigilant cognitive style (predicting higher interoceptive accuracy) whereas predictive processing models assume a less detailed sensory processing (predicting lower interoceptive accuracy). This study aimed at testing the relationship between interoception and symptom perception. Using structural equation modeling, associations between cardiac interoception and symptom perception were tested in a sample of studen…

Contingent biofeedback outperforms other methods to enhance the accuracy of cardiac interoception: A comparison of short interventions.

2019

Abstract Background and objectives Deviations in interoception might contribute to the development and maintenance of mental disorders. The improvement of interoceptive accuracy (IA) is desirable but assessment and training methods remain controversial. For instance, it was assumed that performance increases in heartbeat counting paradigms after cardiac feedback were due to an improvement of knowledge with regard to heart rate rather than due to an actual improvement in IA. Methods Here, we examined effects of contingent cardiac feedback training, non-contingent cardiac feedback, mindfulness practice, and a waiting period with external attentional focus on IA. 100 healthy participants under…

Bodily self-relatedness in vicarious touch is reflected at early cortical processing stages.

2019

Studies have suggested that there is a strong link between the bodily self and the mechanisms underlying vicarious representations. Here, we used somatosensory ERPs to investigate the temporal dynamics of vicarious touch for stimuli that are more or less related to one's own body (human hands vs. rubber gloves). We found that vicarious touch effects were restricted to self-relatable events (human hands) at early implicit stages of somatosensory processing (P45). At later more cognitive stages of processing (late positive complex, LPC), the vicarious touch effect was stronger for self-relatable events (touch on human hands) than nonself-relatable events (touch on rubber gloves) but present f…

Making sense of what you sense: Disentangling interoceptive awareness, sensibility and accuracy.

2016

Garfinkel and Critchley (2013) recently proposed a three level model of interoception. Only few studies, however, have empirically tested this theoretical model thus far. The present study aimed at investigating (1) the central assumptions of this model, i.e. that Accuracy, Sensibility and Awareness are distinguishable facets of interoception and that Interoceptive Accuracy is the basic level of interoception, and (2) whether cardiovascular activation (as indexed by heart rate) is differentially related to the three facets of interoception. Analyses were conducted on a total sample of N=159 healthy participants (118 female [74.2%]; mean age=23.9years, SD=3.3, range=19-45) who performed eith…

Improving heartbeat perception in patients with medically unexplained symptoms reduces symptom distress.

2013

Abstract Distortions in interoceptive accuracy have been linked to somatoform disorders. In line with cognitive theories of symptom formation in somatoform disorders, decreases in interoceptive accuracy have recently been observed to co-occur with more severe symptom reports. The current study tested the hypothesis that experimentally increasing interoceptive accuracy should decrease symptom severity in somatoform disorders. Twenty-nine patients with somatoform disorders were instructed in a newly developed heartbeat perception training procedure. Heartbeat perception, as a proxy for interoceptive accuracy, was assessed with a mental tracking task. Although there were no significant differe…

Health anxiety – An indicator of higher interoceptive sensitivity?

2013

Abstract Background and objectives According to cognitive-behavioral models, health anxiety arises from the misattribution of normal bodily sensations as signs of a severe illness. Consequently, higher levels of interoceptive accuracy might be critically involved in the development of health anxiety. Methods To test this central assumption of cognitive behavioral models of health anxiety, we assessed interoceptive accuracy in a sample of college students ( N  = 100). Two interoceptive tasks (detection of one's own heartbeat using the Schandry paradigm and detection of nonspecific skin conductance fluctuations, NSCFs) were used. Results We found no indication for a positive association betwe…

Interoceptive and multimodal functions of the operculo-insular cortex: tactile, nociceptive and vestibular representations.

2013

The operculo-insular cortex has been termed the 'homeostatic control center' or 'general magnitude estimator' of the human mind. In this study, somatosensory, nociceptive and caloric vestibular stimuli were applied to reveal, whether there are mainly common, or possibly specific regions activated by one modality alone and whether lateralization effects, time pattern differences or influences of the aversive nature of the stimuli could be observed. Activation of the dorsal posterior insula was caused by all stimuli alike thus terming this area multimodal. Early phases of the noxious heat and caloric vestibular stimulation led to responses in the anterior insula. Using conjunction analyses we…

2014

Background Disembodiment is a core feature of depersonalization disorder (DPD). Given the narratives of DPD patients about their disembodiment and emotional numbing and neurobiological findings of an inhibition of insular activity, DPD may be considered as a mental disorder with specific impairments of interoceptive awareness and body perception. Methods We investigated cardioceptive accuracy (CA) of DPD patients (n = 24) as compared to healthy controls (n = 26) with two different heartbeat detection tasks (“Schandry heartbeat counting task” and “Whitehead heartbeat discrimination task”). Self-rated clearness of body perception was measured by questionnaire. Results Contrary to our hypothes…

Interoception moderates the relation between alexithymia and risky-choices in a framing task: A proposal of two-stage model of decision-making.

2021

Decision-making depends on the context (frame) in which questions and alternatives are presented. Moreover, research has showed that the ability to detect bodily sensations (interoception) and being able to attribute these changes to emotions correctly (alexithymia) influence how we make decisions. The aim of the present research was to study how interoception and alexithymia might affect the Framing effect (FE), a cognitive bias closely related to emotional system. 42 healthy participants completed the Risky-choice Framing task and their interoception and alexithymia levels were measured. Results showed that the participants were more risk-taking under the negative frames in comparison to …

Proprioception but not cardiac interoception is related to the rubber hand illusion

2020

The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is a widely used tool in the study of multisensory integration. It develops as the interaction of temporally consistent visual and tactile input, which can overwrite proprioceptive information. Theoretically, the accuracy of proprioception may influence the proneness to the RHI but this has received little research attention to date. Concerning the role of cardioceptive information, the available empirical evidence is equivocal. The current study aimed to test the impact of proprioceptive and cardioceptive input on the RHI. 60 undergraduate students (32 females) completed sensory tasks assessing proprioceptive accuracy with respect to the angle of the elbow jo…