Abstract
Background: Interoceptive information plays a pivotal role in building higher-order cognitive body representations (BR) that neuropsychological and neuroimaging evidence classifies as action-oriented (i.e., body schema) or non-action-oriented (i.e., visuo-spatial body map). This study aimed to explore the development of BR, considering the association with the interoceptive sensibility throughout the lifespan. Methods: Two hundred thirty-nine healthy participants divided into five age groups (7 to 8 years; 9 to 10 years; 18 to 40 years; 41 to 60 years; over 60 years) completed a self-report measure of interoceptive sensibility (the Self-Awareness Questionnaire; SAQ) and were given tasks assessing the two BR (action-oriented: hand laterality task; non-action-oriented: frontal body evocation task). Results: Both children (7–8 and 9–10 years) and older adults (over 60 years) performed worse than young (18–40 years) and middle-aged adults (41–60 years) in action- and non-action-oriented BR tasks. Moderation analyses showed that the SAQ score significantly moderated the relationship between age and action-oriented BR. Conclusions: The current results are consistent with inverted U-shaped developmental curves for action- and non-action-oriented BR. As an innovative aspect, the ability to mentally represent one’s own body parts in diverse states could be negatively affected by higher interoceptive sensibility levels in childhood and late adulthood.
Highlights
Representing our own bodies in our minds is a complex process
Action-oriented body representations (BR) roughly corresponds to the body schema, defined as the dynamic representations of the body derived from multiple sensorimotor inputs, which interact with the motor system in the genesis of actions [9]; instead, for example, the so-called visuospatial body map, which is a topographical representation of the body derived from visual information, including body part boundaries and proximity relationships [9], is a kind of non-action-oriented BR
We found that the higher the interoceptive sensibility, the worse the participants performed on the tasks assessing the action- and non-action-oriented BR, and this effect was specific for the participants aged over 60 years and aged 9–10 years
Summary
Representing our own bodies in our minds is a complex process. it relies on processing and integrating stimuli from many different sources of information (e.g., interoceptive, exteroceptive, and motor information), both inside and outside the body, and has profound implications for processing and localizing sensations to perform appropriate actions and to interact with the environment [1,2,3,4]. A study investigating both action- and non-action-oriented BR in the same sample of school-aged children showed that the structural representation of the body reached an adult-like pattern by the age of 9–10 years, whereas the body schema was still not completely matured and would continue to develop during the school-age [16]. Methods: Two hundred thirty-nine healthy participants divided into five age groups (7 to 8 years; 9 to 10 years; 18 to 40 years; 41 to 60 years; over 60 years) completed a self-report measure of interoceptive sensibility (the Self-Awareness Questionnaire; SAQ) and were given tasks assessing the two BR (action-oriented: hand laterality task; non-action-oriented: frontal body evocation task). The ability to mentally represent one’s own body parts in diverse states could be negatively affected by higher interoceptive sensibility levels in childhood and late adulthood
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