From the heart to the brain: a study of heartbeat contingent scalp potentials

Heartbeat perception has become the most widely studied example of visceral perception. In the present study scalp potentials contingent to the visceral event "heartbeat" were investigated. Scalp potentials, averaged time-locked to the EKG-R-wave, were studied at Fz, Cz, and Pz under four conditions: resting (baseline), heartbeat discrimination task, signal detection task, and heartbeat discrimination task after physical exercise. 22 subjects were assigned to the two groups "good" and "poor" perceivers, according to their performance in an initial heartbeat perception test. Event related potentials (ERPs) of "good" perceivers were more stable across conditions than those of "poor" perceivers. Peak latency within the range of 200 to 300 ms differed significantly between conditions. A principal component analysis performed on the ERP averages extracted five components. Subsequent ANOVAs across factor scores yielded significant main effects for the "groups" factor, experimental conditions and electrode sites. The strongest effects occurred over the frontal region in the latency range of 250-400 ms (following the EKG-R-wave). These were found to be not due to artifactual EKG influences.