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Abstract
Interoception, the process of sensing and interpreting internal bodily signals, plays a crucial role in emotional regulation, decision-making, and overall well-being. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between self-reported interoceptive processes, assessed through the Body Perception Questionnaire (BPQ), and psychophysiological measures of interoception, including cardiac autonomic markers (HF-HRV and RMSSD), cortical processing of cardiac signals (heartbeat-evoked potentials, HEPs), and EEG microstates. We recorded EEG and ECG from 64 healthy volunteers during open-eyed resting state. A positive association was found between the Subdiaphragmatic Reactivity subscale of the BPQ and the coverage of microstate A, a spatial configuration linked to the activation of temporal brain regions, arousal, and sensory processing. No associations were observed between BPQ scores and cardiac measures or HEP amplitudes, suggesting that subjective reports may not align with psychophysiological indices of interoception. Associations were found between HEP amplitudes and microstates A and B, as well as between HRV measures and microstate D, highlighting potential links between autonomic functioning and brain activity during resting state. Although the BPQ is a widely used tool to assess interoceptive sensibility, it may not fully capture the complexity of this construct. These findings provide insight into the complex interplay between self-reported interoception and psychophysiological markers, while emphasizing the need for further research to clarify these relationships and their implications for emotional and cognitive processing.
Highlights
Interoception plays a role in decision-making, memory, social interaction, and emotional regulation (Adolfi et al 2017). This complex construct was further divided into domains, including accuracy, which is related to objective precision in detecting internal bodily sensations; awareness, defined by our metacognitive capacity to be aware of our interoceptive accuracy; and sensibility, encompassing the self-perceived disposition to be internally focused on bodily sensations, which can be assessed, among other ways, through self-report measures (Garfinkel et al 2015)
A positive correlation was found between the Subdiaphragmatic Reactivity subscale of Body Perception Questionnaire (BPQ) and the coverage of MS A (Kendall’s τ = 0.226, p =.011; bayesian: 95%, CI [0.054; 0.377], BF10 = 4.98), indicating moderate evidence supporting an association between both indexes (See Fig. 2a)
Our results suggest an association between the Subdiaphragmatic Reactivity subscale of BPQ and the coverage of microstate A
Summary
The organism’s survival depends on its ability to adapt to an ever-changing environment. A key aspect of this adaptation is the optimization of energy regulation for both the brain and body (Bullmore and Sporns 2012), which relies on allostasis — the body’s ability to react to environmental changes, anticipate demands, and conceive biological plans to prepare for future needs This anticipatory capacity is supported by the prediction and embedding of internal bodily states known as interoception (Schulkin and Sterling 2019). Interoception is responsible for sensing, interpreting, and integrating the body’s physiological conditions (e.g., hunger, thirst, pain), providing a moment-to-moment map of the body’s internal milieu (Berntson and Khalsa 2021; Craig 2003) This capacity requires complex interactions between ascendent (afferent) and descendent (efferent) pathways that balance the body’s internal environment. This complex construct was further divided into domains, including accuracy, which is related to objective precision in detecting internal bodily sensations; awareness, defined by our metacognitive capacity to be aware of our interoceptive accuracy; and sensibility, encompassing the self-perceived disposition to be internally focused on bodily sensations, which can be assessed, among other ways, through self-report measures (Garfinkel et al 2015)
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