Abstract
The body schema is a much discussed aspect of body awareness. Although there is still no single definition, there is widespread consensus that the body schema is responsible for movement and interaction with the environment. It usually remains outside of active consciousness. There are only few investigations on influences on the body schema and none of them investigated feeling of satiety or hunger. Thirty-two healthy women were investigated twice, one time sat and the other time hungry. To measure the body schema, we used a door-like-aperture and compared the critical aperture-to-shoulder-ratio (cA/S). A cover story was used to ensure that the unconscious body schema has been measured. We found a significantly higher cA/S for satiety compared to hungry, which indicates that during satiety participants rotate their shoulders for relatively larger door compared to hunger, unconsciously estimating their body size to be larger. We showed that even a moderate rated feeling of hunger or satiety leads to an adjustment in body-scaled action and consequently also an adaptation of body schema. It suggests that, in addition to the visual-spatial and the proprioceptive representation, somatic information can also be relevant for the body schema.
Highlights
The body schema is a much discussed aspect of body awareness
Patients with various chronic pain syndromes such as chronical musculoskeletal pain or complex regional pain s yndrome[17,18] achieved poorer results in the laterality judgment task (LJT) than healthy subjects. These results suggests that the pain perception as part of the interoception is one variable among others that has an influence on the body schema, the interoceptive sensitivity was not directly measured
There was a significant difference in the critical aperture-to-shoulder-ratio (cA/S) between the hungry and satiated condition (t(31) = − 3.47, p < 0.005, d = 0.329, 95% CI [− 0.04, − 0.01]; Mhungry = 1.169, SD = 0.07; Msatiety = 1.192, SD = 0.07; Fig. 1), suggesting that satiated participants rotate their shoulder for relatively larger door widths compared to hungry
Summary
The body schema is a much discussed aspect of body awareness. there is still no single definition, there is widespread consensus that the body schema is responsible for movement and interaction with the environment. In interaction with the environment visual-spatial and proprioceptive perception play a important role for the body schema To investigate these aspects, full body ownership illusions, in virtual reality (VR), have been used. Patients with various chronic pain syndromes such as chronical musculoskeletal pain or complex regional pain s yndrome[17,18] achieved poorer results in the LJT than healthy subjects These results suggests that the pain perception as part of the interoception is one variable among others that has an influence on the body schema, the interoceptive sensitivity was not directly measured. Another interoceptive input is the feeling of hunger and satiety. Various brain regions (e.g. hypothalamus, inferior parietal lobe (IPL) or the brain stem), hormones (e.g. leptin and ghrelin) and different cell types (e.g. Langerhans’ cells in pancreas or nerve cells of the vagus nerve) are involved in the regulation of hunger and satiety[19–22]
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