An interoceptive predictive coding model of conscious presence

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Computational Psychiatry

Background:

• Conscious presence is a fundamental aspect of subjective experience.
• Disturbances in presence are observed in psychiatric conditions like depersonalization/derealization disorder.
• Existing models lack a unified mechanistic account of presence and its relationship to agency and interoception.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a theoretical neurocognitive model for conscious presence.
• To elucidate the mechanisms underlying disturbances in presence.
• To integrate predictive coding, interoception, agency, and neuroanatomy.

Main Methods:

• Development of a theoretical model based on interoceptive prediction error.
• Integration of predictive models of agency and hierarchical predictive coding.
• Incorporation of dopaminergic signaling, anterior insular cortex (AIC) function, and virtual reality/psychiatric disorder evidence.

Main Results:

• Presence is modeled as the successful top-down suppression of interoceptive signals.
• Agency is linked to presence through the self-generation or external causation of afferent sensory signals.
• The AIC is identified as a key neural locus for comparator mechanisms.

Conclusions:

• The model offers a novel view of emotion as interoceptive inference.
• It predicts outcomes for conjoint manipulations of agency and presence.
• Provides a mechanistic framework for understanding a core property of consciousness.