Internal Bodily States Research Articles

Experimental Studies on State Self-Objectification: A Review and an Integrative Process Model.

This paper provides an organizing framework for the experimental research on the effects of state self-objectification on women. We explain why this body of work, which had grown rapidly in the last 20 years, departs from the original formulation of objectification theory (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997). We compare the different operationalizations of state self-objectification and examine how they map onto its theoretical definition, concluding that the operationalizations have focused mostly on one component of this construct (concerns about one's physical appearance) while neglecting others (adopting a third-person perspective and treating oneself as a dehumanized object). We review the main findings of studies that experimentally induced state self-objectification and examined its affective, motivational, behavioral, cognitive, and physiological outcomes. We note that three core outcomes of this state as specified by objectification theory (safety anxiety, reduced flow experiences, and awareness of internal body states) have hardly been examined so far. Most importantly, we introduce an integrative process model, suggesting that the reported effects are triggered by four different mechanisms: appearance monitoring, experience of discrepancy from appearance standards, stereotype threat, and activation of the “sex object” schema. We propose strategies for distinguishing between these mechanisms and explain the theoretical and practical importance of doing so.

The neurobiology of interoception in health and disease.

Interoception is the sensing of internal bodily sensations. Interoception is an umbrella term that encompasses (1) the afferent (body-to-brain) signaling through distinct neural and humoral (including immune and endocrine) channels; (2) the neural encoding, representation, and integration of this information concerning internal bodily state; (3) the influence of such information on other perceptions, cognitions, and behaviors; (4) and the psychological expression of these representations as consciously accessible physical sensations and feelings. Interoceptive mechanisms ensure physiological health through the cerebral coordination of homeostatic reflexes and allostatic responses that include motivational behaviors and associated affective and emotional feelings. Furthermore, the conscious, unitary sense of self in time and space may be grounded in the primacy and lifelong continuity of interoception. Body-to-brain interactions influence physical and mental well-being. Consequently, we show that systematic investigation of how individual differences, and within-individual changes, in interoceptive processing can contribute to the mechanistic understanding of physical and psychological disorders. We present a neurobiological overview of interoception and describe how interoceptive impairments at different levels relate to specific physical and mental health conditions, including sickness behaviors and fatigue, depression, eating disorders, autism, and anxiety. We frame these findings in an interoceptive predictive processing framework and highlight potential new avenues for treatments.

Interoceptive accuracy scores from the heartbeat counting task are problematic: Evidence from simple bivariate correlations

Interoception, the capacity to perceive internal bodily states, is thought to influence cognitive, affective and interpersonal functioning. It is frequently assessed using the heartbeat counting task, introduced recently in interoceptive research. In this task participants are requested to count their heartbeats without relying on external cues. Interoceptive Accuracy (i.e., IAcc) scores are then computed based on absolute comparisons between actual and reported heartbeats. In a large sample of participants (N = 572), we observed that, whereas IAcc scores are meant to be theoretically agnostic to error type (i.e., over- or underestimation of heartbeats), these scores massively (i.e., > 95%) reflect under-reports. Of concern too, the correlation between actual and reported heartbeats is low overall (r = .16), varies non-linearly across IAcc score quantiles, and suggests undistinguishable interoceptive capacities within the top 60% IAcc scorers. We also found that IAcc scores, which are conceptually independent from actual heart rates, are structurally bound to them. Finally, we show that IAcc scores vary across the time intervals used in the task. We encourage researchers using this score for studying cognitive and emotional processes to reconsider its meaning.

Pacing Decision Making in Sport and the Effects of Interpersonal Competition: A Critical Review.

An athlete's pacing strategy is widely recognised as an essential determinant for performance during individual events. Previous research focussed on the importance of internal bodily state feedback, revealed optimal pacing strategies in time-trial exercise, and explored concepts such as teleoanticipation and template formation. Recently, human-environment interactions have additionally been emphasized as a crucial determinant for pacing, yet how they affect pacing is not well understood. Therefore, this literature review focussed on exploring one of the most important human-environment interactions in sport competitions: the interaction among competitors. The existing literature regarding the regulation of exercise intensity and the effect of competition on pacing and performance is critically reviewed in this paper. The PubMed, CINAHL and Web of Science electronic databases were searched for studies about pacing in sports and (interpersonal) competition between January 2000 to October 2017, using the following combination of terms: (1) Sports AND (2) Pacing, resulting in 75 included papers. The behaviour of opponents was shown to be an essential determinant in the regulation of exercise intensity, based on both observational (N = 59) and experimental (N = 16) studies. However, adjustment in the pacing response related to other competitors appears to depend on the competitive situation and the current internal state of the athlete. The findings of this review emphasize the importance of what is happening around the athlete for the outcome of the decision-making process involved in pacing, and highlight the necessity to incorporate human-environment interactions into models that attempt to explain the regulation of exercise intensity in sports and exercise.

Differences in Functional Connectivity of the Insula Between Brain Wave Vibration in\xa0Meditators and Non-meditators

The majority of meditation involves focusing attention on internal events or sensations and becoming aware of emotions. The insula cortex, through a functional connection with the prefrontal cortex and other brain regions, plays a key role in integrating external sensory information with internal bodily state signals and emotional awareness. The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the resting-state functional connectivity of the insula with other brain regions in meditation practitioners and control subjects. Thirty-five Brain Wave Vibration meditation practitioners and 33 controls without meditation experience were included in this study. All subjects underwent 4.68-min resting-state functional scanning runs using magnetic resonance imaging. The anterior and posterior insulae were chosen as seed regions for the functional connectivity map. Meditation practitioners showed significantly greater insula-related functional connectivity in the thalamus, caudate, middle frontal gyrus, and superior temporal gyrus than did controls. Control subjects demonstrated greater functional connectivity with the posterior insula in the parahippocampal gyrus. Our findings suggest that the practice of Brain Wave Vibration meditation may be associated with functional differences in regions related to focused attention, executive control, and emotional awareness and regulation.

Hippocampal dependent neuropsychological tests and their relationship to measures of cardiac and self-report interoception

The hippocampus is involved in interoceptive processing (i.e., perceiving internal bodily states), with much of this evidence relating to hunger and fullness. Here we examine whether cardiac and self-report measures of interoception are related to two measures of hippocampal dependent learning and memory (HDLM) – the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) and Logical Memory. Healthy adults completed a neuropsychological test battery including all of these measures, along with assessments of intelligence and executive function. Biographical, medical and psychological-related data that might confound detecting an HDLM-interoception relationship was also collected. Both measures of HDLM were associated with cardiac interoception after controlling for confounding variables. More accurate cardiac interoception was linked to better HDLM performance. On the self-report measure of interoception, better performance on the RAVLT was associated with better-reported attention regulation, consistent with the hippocampus’s known role in mindfulness. Overall, these findings suggest hippocampal involvement in cardiac and self-report interoceptive capacity. The broader functional role of the hippocampus in interoception is discussed.

Emotional memories and how your life may depend upon them.

In this commentary, we discuss how one's internal body state and the appraisals an individual utilizes at encoding alter later episodic memory irrespective of social discourse. We suggest that the purpose of episodic memory is originally the preservation of the self, which may have been co-opted to navigating the social world.

Brain activation during the expectations of sensory experience for cutaneous electrical stimulation.

The brain actively interprets sensory inputs by integrating top-down and bottom-up information. Humans can make inferences on somatosensation based on prior experiences and expectations even without the actual stimulation. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural substrates of the expectations of the sensory experience of cutaneous electrical stimulation on acupoint without actual stimuli. This study included 22 participants who wore sticker-type electrodes attached on three different acupoints on different body regions: CV17 (chest), CV23 (chin), and left PC6 (arm). Participants evaluated de qi sensations after they expected electrical stimulation on those points in random order without actual stimulation. All stimuli were presented with corresponding visual information of the stimulation sites. The control condition included the same visual information but outside the body. The expectations of cutaneous electrical stimuli without actual stimulation on three acupoints resulted in greater de qi sensation compared to the control condition. Cognitive components of cutaneous electrical stimulation exhibited greater brain activation in the anterior insula, pre-supplementary motor area, and secondary somatosensory area. The expectations of acupuncture stimulation exhibited a distinct experience of somatosensation as well as brain activations in insula and pre-supplementary motor area. Our findings suggest that the sensory experience of the pseudo-cutaneous stimulation may be derived from the predictive role of the salience network in monitoring internal and external body states.

Role of interoceptive accuracy in topographical changes in emotion-induced bodily sensations.

The emotion-associated bodily sensation map is composed of a specific topographical distribution of bodily sensations to categorical emotions. The present study investigated whether or not interoceptive accuracy was associated with topographical changes in this map following emotion-induced bodily sensations. This study included 31 participants who observed short video clips containing emotional stimuli and then reported their sensations on the body map. Interoceptive accuracy was evaluated with a heartbeat detection task and the spatial patterns of bodily sensations to specific emotions, including anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, and neutral, were visualized using Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) analyses. Distinct patterns of bodily sensations were identified for different emotional states. In addition, positive correlations were found between the magnitude of sensation in emotion-specific regions and interoceptive accuracy across individuals. A greater degree of interoceptive accuracy was associated with more specific topographical changes after emotional stimuli. These results suggest that the awareness of one’s internal bodily states might play a crucial role as a required messenger of sensory information during the affective process.

Afferent cardiac signals modulate attentional engagement to low spatial frequency fearful faces

Despite the growing consensus that the continuous dynamic cortical representations of internal bodily states shape the subjective experience of emotions, physiological arousal is typically considered only a consequence and rarely a determinant of the emotional experience. Recent experimental approaches study how afferent autonomic signals from the heart modulate the processing of sensory information by focussing on the phasic properties of arterial baroreceptor firing that is active during cardiac systole and quiescent during cardiac diastole. For example, baroreceptor activation has been shown to enhance the processing of threat-signalling stimuli. Here, we investigate the role of cardiac afferent signals in the rapid engagement and disengagement of attention to fear stimuli. In an adapted version of the emotional attentional cueing paradigm, we timed the presentation of cues, either fearful or neutral faces, to coincide with the different phases of the cardiac cycle. Moreover, we presented cues with different spatial frequency ranges to investigate how these interoceptive signals influence the processing of visual information. Results revealed a selective enhancement of attentional engagement to low spatial frequency fearful faces presented during cardiac systole relative to diastole. No cardiac cycle effects were observed to high spatial frequency nor broad spatial frequency cues. These findings expand our mechanistic understanding of how body–brain interactions may impact the visual processing of fearful stimuli and contribute to the increased attentional capture of threat signals.

Aberrant Insula-Centered Functional Connectivity in Psychogenic Erectile Dysfunction Patients: A Resting-State fMRI Study.

Most previous studies exploring the neural mechanism of psychogenic erectile dysfunction (pED) focused on brain activity under tasks. We suggest that the resting brain activity is equally important in pED studies, in that the patterns of spontaneous neural activities is independent of modalities of sensory input, therefore providing substantial information regarding the central mechanism of pED. Our previous study reported the altered baseline activity in right anterior insula (aINS) in pED patients. Also, the insula is a pivotal region in sexual behavior, which is suggested to be able to directly mediate erection. Therefore, the current study employed resting-state fMRI to examine alterations in functional connectivity (FC) of the aINS comparing pED patients with matched control subjects. After rigorous participant inclusion procedure, 27 pED patients and 27 healthy male controls were enrolled. Our results elucidated the disrupted homogeneity within the right aINS and aberrant connection patterns between the right aINS and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), as well as the right aINS and the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ) respectively in pED group, as compared with the healthy controls. In conclusion, our results demonstrated the aberrant insula-centered FC in pED, which may be related to the abnormal representation of internal bodily state or needs in pED patients and thus further affect the inhibitory control in the sexual context. We hope that these findings may shed new light on the understanding of the central mechanism of pED.

From Thirst to Satiety: The Anterior Mid-Cingulate Cortex and Right Posterior Insula Indicate Dynamic Changes in Incentive Value.

The cingulate cortex and insula are among the neural structures whose activations have been modulated in functional imaging studies examining discrete states of thirst and drinking to satiation. Building upon these findings, the present study aimed to identify neural structures that change their pattern of activation elicited by water held in the mouth in relation to the internal body state, i.e., proportional to continuous water consumption. Accordingly, participants in a thirsty state were scanned while receiving increments of water until satiety was reached. As expected, fluid ingestion led to a clear decrease in self-reported thirst and the pleasantness ratings of the water ingested. Furthermore, linear decreases in the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response to water ingestion were observed in the anterior mid-cingulate cortex (aMCC) and right posterior insula as participants shifted towards the non-thirsty state. In addition, regions in the superior temporal gyrus (STG), supplementary motor area (SMA), superior parietal lobule (SPL), precuneus and calcarine sulcus also showed a linear decrease with increasing fluid consumption. Further analyses related single trial BOLD responses of associated regions to trial-by-trial ratings of thirst and pleasantness. Overall, the aMCC and posterior insula may be key sites of a neural network representing the motivation for drinking based on the dynamic integration of internal state and external stimuli.

Bilateral Rolandic operculum processing underlying heartbeat awareness reflects changes in bodily self-consciousness.

Exteroceptive bodily signals (including tactile, proprioceptive and visual signals) are important information contributing to self-consciousness. Moreover, prominent theories proposed that visceral signals about internal bodily states are equally or even more important for self-consciousness. Neuroimaging studies have described several brain regions which process signals related to bodily self-consciousness (BSC) based on the integration of exteroceptive signals (e.g. premotor cortex, angular gyrus, supramarginal gyrus and extrastriate body area), and that another brain region, the insula/operculum which is involved in interoception and interoceptive awareness, processes signals critical for self-awareness. Providing evidence for the integration of exteroceptive and interoceptive bodily signals, recent behavioral experiments have demonstrated that the manipulation of interoceptive (e.g. cardiac) signals, coupled with exteroceptive (e.g. visual) signals, also modulates BSC. Does this integration occur within or outside the structures described above? To this end, we adapted a recently designed protocol that uses cardio-visual stimulation to induce altered states of BSC to fMRI. Additionally, we measured neural activity in a classical interoceptive task. We found six brain regions (bilateral Rolandic operculum, bilateral supramarginal gyrus, right frontal inferior operculum and left temporal superior gyrus) that were activated differently during the interoception task as opposed to a control task. The brain regions which showed the highest selectivity for BSC based on our cardio-visual manipulation were found in the bilateral Rolandic operculum. Given our findings, we propose that the Rolandic operculum processes integrated exteroceptive-interoceptive signals that are necessary for interoceptive awareness as well as BSC.

A four-day Western-style dietary intervention causes reductions in hippocampal-dependent learning and memory and interoceptive sensitivity.

In animals, a Western style diet–high in saturated fat and added sugar–causes impairments in hippocampal-dependent learning and memory (HDLM) and perception of internal bodily state (interoception). In humans, while there is correlational support for a link between Western-style diet, HDLM, and interoception, there is as yet no causal data. Here, healthy individuals were randomly assigned to consume either a breakfast high in saturated fat and added sugar (Experimental condition) or a healthier breakfast (Control condition), over four consecutive days. Tests of HDLM, interoception and biological measures were administered before and after breakfast on the days one and four, and participants completed food diaries before and during the study. At the end of the study, the Experimental condition showed significant reductions in HDLM and reduced interoceptive sensitivity to hunger and fullness, relative to the Control condition. The Experimental condition also showed a markedly different blood glucose and triglyceride responses to their breakfast, relative to Controls, with larger changes in blood glucose across breakfast being associated with greater reductions in HDLM. The Experimental condition compensated for their energy-dense breakfast by reducing carbohydrate intake, while saturated fat intake remained consistently higher than Controls. This is the first experimental study in humans to demonstrate that a Western-style diet impacts HDLM following a relatively short exposure–just as in animals. The link between diet-induced HDLM changes and blood glucose suggests one pathway by which diet impacts HDLM in humans.

Neural correlates of heart-focused interoception: a functional magnetic resonance imaging meta-analysis.

Interoception is the ability to perceive one's internal body state including visceral sensations. Heart-focused interoception has received particular attention, in part due to a readily available task for behavioural assessment, but also due to accumulating evidence for a significant role in emotional experience, decision-making and clinical disorders such as anxiety and depression. Improved understanding of the underlying neural correlates is important to promote development of anatomical-functional models and suitable intervention strategies. In the present meta-analysis, nine studies reporting neural activity associated with interoceptive attentiveness (i.e. focused attention to a particular interoceptive signal for a given time interval) to one's heartbeat were submitted to a multilevel kernel density analysis. The findings corroborated an extended network associated with heart-focused interoceptive attentiveness including the posterior right and left insula, right claustrum, precentral gyrus and medial frontal gyrus. Right-hemispheric dominance emphasizes non-verbal information processing with the posterior insula presumably serving as the major gateway for cardioception. Prefrontal neural activity may reflect both top-down attention deployment and processing of feed-forward cardioceptive information, possibly orchestrated via the claustrum.This article is part of the themed issue 'Interoception beyond homeostasis: affect, cognition and mental health'.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)- a matter of concern

Psychophysiological science consider foundations of the mind is exemplified as Mental processes influence the physiological state of the body and changes in the body's physiology influence thoughts, feelings and motivational behavior. However, Harmony is a ubiquitous principle based on Motivations arise from physiological need to preserve the integrity of the organism, via processes and the ways we process or react to our environment depends on our internal bodily state. For example, if we are thirsty or hungry, the manner in which we behave toward food stimuli differs and biases perceptions, hedonics, cognitions and memory. Motivations drive behavior, while changes in the internal state of the body anticipate, facilitate or accommodate the consequences of motoric action. The result is an individual system in a state of vibrant instability internally that contributed to physical and social interaction with the external environment. The individual make-ups of character and behaviors has emerged out of such patterns of chemical release. The mind is supposed to be a virtual entity, one that reflects the workings of the neural networks, chemical and hormonal systems in our brain. It cannot be localized to particular areas within the brain, though the entire cerebral cortex and deep grey matter form important components. Realization, sensitivity, conduct, intelligence, linguistic, impulse, energy, the urge to excel and intellect of the most complex kind are the product of the wide-ranging and multifaceted linkages between the different parts of the brain. Likewise, anomalies attributed to the mind, such as the spectrum of illnesses dealt with by psychoanalysts are consequences of widespread aberrations, often in the chemical processes within different parts of the brain.

Testing the importance of the Medial Temporal Lobes in human interoception: Does it matter if there is a memory component to the task?

Interoception is the ability to consciously perceive internal bodily states. Neuroimaging suggests that the insula (IC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) mediate interoception, while studies involving patients/animals with brain lesions suggest the medial temporal lobe (MTL) is particularly important. One reason for these contrasting conclusions may lie in the types of interoceptive task used by these different approaches. Some tasks probably require integration of current physiological state with mnemonic information (e.g., how much one last ate), and these may be especially reliant upon MTL processing. We compared one task that probably requires integration - a water load task - with one that likely does not - a heart-rate tracking task - in two individuals with selective MTL damage (and with intact IC and ACC). A group of matched healthy individuals served as controls. The main finding was that individuals with MTL damage, relative to controls, were equally and significantly impaired on both types of interoception task. This suggests that MTL structures are involved in mediating interoception even when using a task (heart rate tracking) that does not seemingly require memory and that in neuroimaging studies activates the IC and ACC. The reasons for this apparent inconsistency with neuroimaging findings and the functional role of the MTL in interoception are discussed.

Individual differences in emotional processing and autobiographical memory: interoceptive awareness and alexithymia in the fading affect bias

ABSTRACTThe capacity to perceive internal bodily states is linked to emotional awareness and effective emotional regulation. We explore individual differences in emotional awareness in relation to the fading affect bias (FAB), which refers to the greater dwindling of unpleasant compared to pleasant emotions in autobiographical memory. We consider interoceptive awareness and alexithymia in relation to the FAB, and private event rehearsal as a mediating process. With increasing interoceptive awareness, there was an enhanced FAB, but with increasing alexithymia, there was a decreased FAB. Further, the effects of interoceptive awareness were partially mediated by private rehearsal of pleasant events. We provide novel evidence that capacity for emotional awareness and thus effective processing is an important factor predictive of the FAB. Moreover, our results imply an important role for maintaining positive affect in the FAB. Our findings offer new insights into the effects of interoception and alexithymia on autobiographical memory, and support concepts of the FAB emerging as a result of adaptive emotional regulation processes.

Editorial: Fatigue in Multiple Sclerosis

Editorial: Fatigue in Multiple Sclerosis

Watching a real moving object expands tactile duration: the role of task-irrelevant action context for subjective time.

Although it is well established that action contexts can expand the perceived durations of action-related events, whether action contexts also impact the subjective duration of events unrelated to the action remains an open issue. Here we examined how the automatic implicit reactions induced by viewing task-irrelevant, real moving objects influence tactile duration judgments. Participants were asked to make temporal bisection judgments of a tactile event while seeing a potentially catchable swinging ball. Approaching movement induced a tactile-duration overestimation relative to lateral movement and to a static baseline, and receding movement produced an expansion similar in duration to that from approaching movement. Interestingly, the effect of approaching movement on the subjective tactile duration was greatly reduced when participants held lightweight objects in their hands, relative to a hands-free condition, whereas no difference was obtained in the tactile-duration estimates between static hands-free and static hands-occupied conditions. The results indicate that duration perception is determined by internal bodily states as well as by sensory evidence.