The brain and the body continuously exchange information. This brain-body communication is crucial for mental and physical health. Its disruption, however, contributes to chronic stress, and physical and mental disorders. Brain-body communication is reflected in the perception of bodily processes, the so-called “interoception”.

Interoception plays an important role in every-day life. Accurate interoception can promote learning and memory, emotional experience and empathy, and intuitive decision making (e.g., the “gut feeling” in decision making).

Objective evaluation of interoception

The assessment of individuals’ interoception, however, is an unresolved issue, as simply asking people what they feel in their bodies may differ from actual physical sensations. Dr André Schulz and Prof. Claus Vögele from the Integrative Research Unit on Social and Individual Development (INSIDE) at the University of Luxembourg, together with colleagues from the University of Trier, recently have developed a new way to assess signals from the respiratory system (i.e. lungs), which underlie the perception of breathing.

This method is based on involuntary (“non-reactive”) eye blink responses to startling noises that differ during inspiration and expiration. The researchers developed a new mathematical algorithm that uses pattern detection to distinguish between inspiration and expiration phases more precisely than currently possible.

This new method will help to better understand the differences between interoceptive self-reports and actual physical sensations in mental disorders (e.g., panic disorder). The approach could also help researchers in other fields of psychology, psychophysiology and respiratory physiology.

Theme issue

This research has recently been published in the prestigious journal “Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences”, which has dedicated a theme issue to this topic and was released on 10 October 2016 (“Interoception beyond homeostasis: affect, cognition and mental health”). In 16 original, review and opinion papers, world-leading researchers in this field discuss normal and dysregulated states of interoception. The papers cover conceptual considerations, methodological developments, and the neurobiology of normal and disrupted interoception in mental and neurological disorders.

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This publication is available on ORBi^lu : Interoception beyond homeostasis: affect, cognition and mental health

Image: The constant dialogue between the heart and the brain, the two most important organs of the body, illustrates the fundamental role that interoception plays for cognition.