Interoception relies on prediction, like exteroceptive perceptions such as vision.Unlike the study of vision, cognitive science lacks a clear mechanistic model of how physical energies in the viscera ...translate into affective experiences.We outline a model whereby physical energies in the viscera are transduced, transmitted, and compressed within the interoceptive system.The proposed model can explain why interoceptive sensations are integrated into experiences of affective states.We speculate on how valence and arousal might emerge from distinct processes in interoceptive pathways.This model begins to explain how a beating heart is experienced as arousing, unpleasant, and even fearful.
Scholars have argued for centuries that affective states involve interoception, or representations of the state of the body. Yet, we lack a mechanistic understanding of how signals from the body are transduced, transmitted, compressed, and integrated by the brains of humans to produce affective states. We suggest that to understand how the body contributes to affect, we first need to understand information flow through the nervous system’s interoceptive pathways. We outline such a model and discuss how unique anatomical and physiological aspects of interoceptive pathways may give rise to the qualities of affective experiences in general and valence and arousal in particular. We conclude by considering implications and future directions for research on interoception, affect, emotions, and human mental experiences.
Scholars have argued for centuries that affective states involve interoception, or representations of the state of the body. Yet, we lack a mechanistic understanding of how signals from the body are transduced, transmitted, compressed, and integrated by the brains of humans to produce affective states. We suggest that to understand how the body contributes to affect, we first need to understand information flow through the nervous system’s interoceptive pathways. We outline such a model and discuss how unique anatomical and physiological aspects of interoceptive pathways may give rise to the qualities of affective experiences in general and valence and arousal in particular. We conclude by considering implications and future directions for research on interoception, affect, emotions, and human mental experiences.
•Sex differences in interoceptive accuracy are reported, but results are mixed.•This meta-analysis sought to confirm the presence or absence of sex differences.•Poor cardiac accuracy on counting and ...discrimination tasks was observed in females.•Effects were less stable for non-cardiac due to varied methods and sample sizes.•Results were mixed for respiratory, and no differences were observed for gastric.
Interoceptive accuracy, the ability to correctly perceive internal signals arising from the body, is thought to be disrupted in numerous mental and physical health conditions. Whilst evidence suggests poorer interoceptive accuracy in females compared to males, raising the possibility that interoceptive differences may relate to sex differences in mental and physical health, results concerning sex differences in interoceptive accuracy are mixed. Given such ambiguity, this meta-analysis aimed to establish the presence or absence of sex differences in interoceptive accuracy across cardiac, respiratory, and gastric domains. A review of 7956 abstracts resulted in 93 eligible studies. Results demonstrated superior accuracy in males across cardiac, but not gastric, tasks, while findings on respiratory tasks were mixed. Effect sizes were consistent across cardiac tasks, but instability and/or moderate heterogeneity was observed across other domains, likely due to the small number of eligible studies. Despite such limitations, results indicate the possibility of sex differences across interoception tasks and domains. Methodological limitations concerning the influence of physiological factors, and directions for future research are discussed.
Internal senses of the vagus nerve Prescott, Sara L.; Liberles, Stephen D.
Neuron (Cambridge, Mass.),
02/2022, Volume:
110, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The vagus nerve is an indispensable body-brain connection that controls vital aspects of autonomic physiology like breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and gut motility, reflexes like coughing and ...swallowing, and survival behaviors like feeding, drinking, and sickness responses. Classical physiological studies and recent molecular/genetic approaches have revealed a tremendous diversity of vagal sensory neuron types that innervate different internal organs, with many cell types remaining poorly understood. Here, we review the state of knowledge related to vagal sensory neurons that innervate the respiratory, cardiovascular, and digestive systems. We focus on cell types and their response properties, physiological/behavioral roles, engaged neural circuits and, when possible, sensory receptors. We are only beginning to understand the signal transduction mechanisms used by vagal sensory neurons and upstream sentinel cells, and future studies are needed to advance the field of interoception to the level of mechanistic understanding previously achieved for our external senses.
Prescott and Liberles review sensory biology of the vagus nerve, a major arm of the interoceptive nervous system and vital body-brain relay. Vagal sensory neuron functions, anatomical projections, responses, and sensory receptors are discussed across physiological systems.
Interoception and Mental Health: A Roadmap Khalsa, Sahib S.; Adolphs, Ralph; Cameron, Oliver G. ...
Biological psychiatry : cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging,
06/2018, Volume:
3, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Interoception refers to the process by which the nervous system senses, interprets, and integrates signals originating from within the body, providing a moment-by-moment mapping of the body’s ...internal landscape across conscious and unconscious levels. Interoceptive signaling has been considered a component process of reflexes, urges, feelings, drives, adaptive responses, and cognitive and emotional experiences, highlighting its contributions to the maintenance of homeostatic functioning, body regulation, and survival. Dysfunction of interoception is increasingly recognized as an important component of different mental health conditions, including anxiety disorders, mood disorders, eating disorders, addictive disorders, and somatic symptom disorders. However, a number of conceptual and methodological challenges have made it difficult for interoceptive constructs to be broadly applied in mental health research and treatment settings. In November 2016, the Laureate Institute for Brain Research organized the first Interoception Summit, a gathering of interoception experts from around the world, with the goal of accelerating progress in understanding the role of interoception in mental health. The discussions at the meeting were organized around four themes: interoceptive assessment, interoceptive integration, interoceptive psychopathology, and the generation of a roadmap that could serve as a guide for future endeavors. This review article presents an overview of the emerging consensus generated by the meeting.
The science of emotion has been using folk psychology categories derived from philosophy to search for the brain basis of emotion. The last two decades of neuroscience research have brought us to the ...brink of a paradigm shift in understanding the workings of the brain, however, setting the stage to revolutionize our understanding of what emotions are and how they work. In this article, we begin with the structure and function of the brain, and from there deduce what the biological basis of emotions might be. The answer is a brain-based, computational account called the theory of constructed emotion.
•Emotions comprise conscious, behavioural, physiological and cognitive elements.•Neural correlates of conscious emotion can be investigated in humans and animals.•Contemporary theories of ...consciousness have differing implications for animals.
The componential view of human emotion recognises that affective states comprise conscious, behavioural, physiological, neural and cognitive elements. Although many animals display bodily and behavioural changes consistent with the occurrence of affective states similar to those seen in humans, the question of whether and in which species these are accompanied by conscious experiences remains controversial. Finding scientifically valid methods for investigating markers for the subjective component of affect in both humans and animals is central to developing a comparative understanding of the processes and mechanisms of affect and its evolution and distribution across taxonomic groups, to our understanding of animal welfare, and to the development of animal models of affective disorders. Here, contemporary evidence indicating potential markers of conscious processing in animals is reviewed, with a view to extending this search to include markers of conscious affective processing. We do this by combining animal-focused approaches with investigations of the components of conscious and non-conscious emotional processing in humans, and neuropsychological research into the structure and functions of conscious emotions.
Behavior is guided by the compatibility of expectations based on past experience and the outcome. In a recent study, Fouragnan and colleagues report that absolute prediction error (PE)-related ...heart-evoked potentials (HEPs) differ according to the cardiac cycle phase at outcome, and that the magnitude of this effect positively correlates with reward learning in healthy adults.
Behavior is guided by the compatibility of expectations based on past experience and the outcome. In a recent study, Fouragnan and colleagues report that absolute prediction error (PE)-related heart-evoked potentials (HEPs) differ according to the cardiac cycle phase at outcome, and that the magnitude of this effect positively correlates with reward learning in healthy adults.
•Interoception refers to the signalling and perception of internal bodily sensations.•We validate a three dimensional construct of interoception.•This comprises: interoceptive accuracy, sensibility ...and awareness (metacognition).•These interoceptive dimensions represent dissociable interoceptive processes.•Interoceptive accuracy serves as the core (central) construct.
Interoception refers to the sensing of internal bodily changes. Interoception interacts with cognition and emotion, making measurement of individual differences in interoceptive ability broadly relevant to neuropsychology. However, inconsistency in how interoception is defined and quantified led to a three-dimensional model. Here, we provide empirical support for dissociation between dimensions of: (1) interoceptive accuracy (performance on objective behavioural tests of heartbeat detection), (2) interoceptive sensibility (self-evaluated assessment of subjective interoception, gauged using interviews/questionnaires) and (3) interoceptive awareness (metacognitive awareness of interoceptive accuracy, e.g. confidence-accuracy correspondence). In a normative sample (N=80), all three dimensions were distinct and dissociable. Interoceptive accuracy was only partly predicted by interoceptive awareness and interoceptive sensibility. Significant correspondence between dimensions emerged only within the sub-group of individuals with greatest interoceptive accuracy. These findings set the context for defining how the relative balance of accuracy, sensibility and awareness dimensions explain cognitive, emotional and clinical associations of interoceptive ability.
The brain regulates the body by anticipating its needs and attempting to meet them before they arise – a process called allostasis. Allostasis requires a model of the changing sensory conditions ...within the body, a process called interoception. In this paper, we examine how interoception may provide performance feedback for allostasis. We suggest studying allostasis in terms of control theory, reviewing control theory’s applications to related issues in physiology, motor control, and decision making. We synthesize these by relating them to the important properties of allostatic regulation as a control problem. We then sketch a novel formalism for how the brain might perform allostatic control of the viscera by analogy to skeletomotor control, including a mathematical view on how interoception acts as performance feedback for allostasis. Finally, we suggest ways to test implications of our hypotheses.
•Interoception enables the brain to anticipate the body’s upcoming metabolic needs.•Interoception provides performance metrics for visceromotor regulation.•We connect control theory with decision making and motor control of the body.•We model allostatic control as optimal control with a time-varying reference signal.
•Homeostatic interoceptive signal influence efferent autonomic outflow.•Predictive coding frameworks can elucidate interoceptive and autonomic symbiosis.•We describe interoceptive and autonomic ...symbiosis using interoceptive inference.•We summarise our empirical application of interoceptive inference to dysautonomia.•We report preliminary findings linking altered interoception to psychopathology.
The central and autonomic nervous systems can be defined by their anatomical, functional and neurochemical characteristics, but neither functions in isolation. For example, fundamental components of autonomically mediated homeostatic processes are afferent interoceptive signals reporting the internal state of the body and efferent signals acting on interoceptive feedback assimilated by the brain. Recent predictive coding (interoceptive inference) models formulate interoception in terms of embodied predictive processes that support emotion and selfhood. We propose interoception may serve as a way to investigate holistic nervous system function and dysfunction in disorders of brain, body and behaviour. We appeal to predictive coding and (active) interoceptive inference, to describe the homeostatic functions of the central and autonomic nervous systems. We do so by (i) reviewing the active inference formulation of interoceptive and autonomic function, (ii) survey clinical applications of this formulation and (iii) describe how it offers an integrative approach to human physiology; particularly, interactions between the central and peripheral nervous systems in health and disease.
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