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Brain structures involved in interoceptive awareness and cardioafferent signal processing: a dipole source
Olga Pollatos1, Wladimir Kirsch, Rainer Schandry
1Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich, Germany. pollatos@psy.uni-muenchen.de
Human Brain Mapping
|April 27, 2005
Summary
Researchers identified brain regions involved in sensing heartbeats using electroencephalography (EEG). Good heartbeat perceivers showed stronger brain activity in the anterior cingulate and insula, suggesting these areas are key for cardioception.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychophysiology
Background:
- Interoception, the sense of the body's internal state, influences emotions and motivation.
- Cortical and subcortical structures involved in interoceptive processes remain largely unknown.
- Previous fMRI studies implicated insula, somatomotor, and cingulate cortices in heartbeat attention.
Purpose of the Study:
- To localize the neural sources of the heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP).
- To investigate differences in HEP generation between individuals with high and low interoceptive awareness of their heartbeat.
- To identify brain regions crucial for cardioception.
Main Methods:
- Multichannel electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded from 44 participants performing a heartbeat perception task.
- Participants were categorized as good or poor heartbeat perceivers based on task performance.
- BESA dipole source analysis was employed to identify HEP generators.
Main Results:
- Highest HEP amplitudes were observed over frontal and frontocentral electrodes >200 ms post-R-wave onset.
- Four HEP sources were localized to the anterior cingulate cortex, right insula, prefrontal cortex, and left secondary somatosensory cortex.
- Good perceivers exhibited significantly higher HEP amplitudes and dipole strength in these four cortical sources compared to poor perceivers.
Conclusions:
- The anterior cingulate cortex and right insula are identified as key interoceptive centers for cardioception.
- These cortical structures are involved in processing cardiac signals and contribute to interoceptive awareness.
- Individual differences in cardioception are reflected in the neural processing of cardiac afferent signals.