I Keep a Close Watch on This Heart of Mine: Increased Interoception in Insomnia

Whereas both insomnia and altered interoception are core symptoms in affective disorders, their neural mechanisms remain insufficiently understood and have not previously been linked. Insomnia Disorder (ID) is characterized by sensory hypersensitivity during wakefulness and sleep. Previous studies on sensory processing in ID addressed external stimuli only, but not interoception. Interoceptive sensitivity can be studied quantitatively by measuring the cerebral cortical response to one's heartbeat (heartbeat-evoked potential, HEP). We here investigated whether insomnia is associated with increased interoceptive sensitivity as indexed by the HEP amplitude.

Sixty-four participants aged 21-70 years were recruited through www.sleepregistry.nl including 32 people suffering from ID and 32 age- and sex-matched controls without sleep complaints. HEPs were obtained from resting-state high-density electroencephalography (HD-EEG) recorded during evening wakeful rest in eyes-open (EO) and eyes-closed (EC) conditions of 5-minute duration each. Significance of group differences in HEP amplitude and their topographical distribution over the scalp were assessed by means of cluster-based permutation tests.

In particular during EC, and to a lesser extent during EO, people with ID had a larger amplitude late HEP component than controls at frontal electrodes 376-500 ms after the R-wave peak. Source localization suggested increased neural activity time-locked to heartbeats in people with ID mainly in anterior cingulate/medial frontal cortices.

People with insomnia show insufficient adaptation of their brain responses to the ever-present heartbeats. Abnormalities in the neural circuits involved in interoceptive awareness including the salience network may be of key importance to the pathophysiology of insomnia.