Heartbeat-Evoked Cortical Potential during Sleep and Interoceptive Sensitivity: A Matter of Hypnotizability

Individuals with different hypnotizability display different interoceptive sensitivity/awareness (IS) and accuracy (IA), likely sustained by morphofunctional differences in interoception-related brain regions and, thus, possibly also observable during sleep. We investigated the heartbeat-evoked cortical potential amplitude (HEP) during sleep, its association with IS, and the role of hypnotizability in such association. We performed a retrospective analysis of polysomnographic recordings of 39 healthy volunteers. Participants completed the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA), measuring IS and IA, and underwent hypnotic assessment via the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, form A. The amplitude of the early and late HEP components was computed at EEG frontal and central sites. In both regions, the early HEP component was larger in N3 than in N2 and REM, with no difference between N2 and REM. Greater HEP amplitude at frontal than at central sites was found for the late HEP component. HEP amplitudes were not influenced by the autonomic state assessed by heart rate variability in the frequency and time domains. We report for the first time a positive correlation between the central late HEP component and MAIA dimensions, which became non-significant after removing the effects of hypnotizability. Our findings indicate that hypnotizability sustains the correlation between IS and HEP amplitude during sleep.