Interoception and gender: What aspects should we pay attention to?
Aida Grabauskaitė1, Mindaugas Baranauskas1, Inga Griškova-Bulanova1
1Department of Neurobiology and Biophysics, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania.
Consciousness and Cognition
|November 21, 2016
Summary
Gender influences how individuals perceive bodily sensations and emotional states. This study found females notice sensations more but are less accurate at detecting heartbeats, highlighting the need to consider sex in health assessments.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Human Physiology
Background:
- Interoception, the sense of the body's internal state, is implicated in various somatic and mental health conditions.
- Existing research often overlooks significant gender differences in interoception, despite varying prevalence rates of related disorders between sexes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate potential gender disparities in interoceptive awareness and accuracy among healthy young adults.
- To determine if sex influences the perception of bodily sensations and their connection to emotional states.
Main Methods:
- A cohort of 376 healthy participants (51% male, aged 17-30) completed the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA).
- Interoceptive accuracy was further assessed in a subgroup of 40 participants (50% male) using the heartbeat counting task (HCT).
Main Results:
- Females reported noticing bodily sensations more frequently and better understood the link between sensations and emotions.
- Women experienced more distress with pain/discomfort and perceived their bodies as less safe.
- In contrast, females demonstrated lower accuracy in consciously detecting heartbeats via the HCT.
Conclusions:
- Significant gender differences exist in both interoceptive awareness and accuracy.
- These findings underscore the importance of considering sex as a variable in interoceptive evaluations, particularly for conditions involving bodily sensations and emotional regulation.
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