Impact of cardiac interoception cues and confidence on voluntary decisions to make or withhold action in an intentional inhibition task

Charlotte L Rae,Dennis E O Larsson,Cassandra D Gould Van Praag,Marta Silva,Sarah N Garfinkel,Aysha Ahmad,Hugo D Critchley

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-60405-8

Abstract

Interoceptive signals concerning the internal physiological state of the body influence motivational feelings and action decisions. Cardiovascular arousal may facilitate inhibition to mitigate risks of impulsive actions. Baroreceptor discharge at ventricular systole underpins afferent signalling of cardiovascular arousal. In a modified Go/NoGo task, decisions to make or withhold actions on ‘Choose’ trials were not influenced by cardiac phase, nor individual differences in heart rate variability. However, cardiac interoceptive awareness and insight predicted how frequently participants chose to act, and their speed of action: Participants with better awareness and insight tended to withhold actions and respond slower, while those with poorer awareness and insight tended to execute actions and respond faster. Moreover, self-reported trait urgency correlated negatively with intentional inhibition rates. These findings suggest that lower insight into bodily signals is linked to urges to move the body, putatively by engendering noisier sensory input into motor decision processes eliciting reactive behaviour.

Highlights

Intentional inhibition is the volitional withholding of cognitive processes, which include the withholding of motor action[1], thoughts[2], and memories[3]
Participants showed increased response inhibition efficiency when ‘stop’ cues were presented at the point within the cardiac cycle when the heart contracts, eliciting baroreceptor afferent firing, compared to when the heart fills between beats and baroreceptors are quiescent
Given the facilitatory effect of systole on reactive response inhibition in the stop signal task[18], and the long-held view that heartbeats may broadly invoke inhibitory processes across behavioural domains[22], we predicted that heartbeats would promote intentional inhibition, such that participants would choose to withhold button presses more frequently during systole than diastole

Summary

Introduction

Intentional inhibition is the volitional withholding of cognitive processes, which include the withholding of motor action[1], thoughts[2], and memories[3]. Participants showed increased response inhibition efficiency (indexed by shorter stop signal reaction times) when ‘stop’ cues were presented at the point within the cardiac cycle when the heart contracts (systole), eliciting baroreceptor afferent firing, compared to when the heart fills between beats (diastole) and baroreceptors are quiescent These momentary interoceptive cardiac cues are associated with the timing of voluntary movements, with onset of actions to sample information more likely to coincide with systole[19,20], and the offset of self-paced action sequences with diastole[21]. Given the facilitatory effect of systole on reactive response inhibition in the stop signal task[18], and the long-held view that heartbeats may broadly invoke inhibitory processes across behavioural domains[22], we predicted that heartbeats would promote intentional inhibition, such that participants would choose to withhold button presses more frequently during systole than diastole

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion