Delving into the relationship between regular physical exercise and cardiac interoception in two cross-sectional...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cardiovascular Physiology
• Exercise Science

Background:

• Cardiac interoception, sensing internal cardiac signals, improves after acute exercise.
• Long-term effects of regular exercise on cardiac interoception and related neural activity (heart-evoked potential - HEP) are unclear.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if regular physical exercise leads to long-term changes in cardiac interoceptive accuracy.
• To determine if these changes affect neural activity associated with cardiac signal processing (HEP).

Main Methods:

• Two cross-sectional studies compared physically active and inactive individuals (N=45 and N=60).
• Cardiac interoception was assessed using HEP, Heartbeat Counting task, and Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI).
• Cardiovascular fitness and electrocardiogram (ECG) differences were confirmed between groups.

Main Results:

• Confirmed differences in cardiovascular fitness and ECG between active and inactive groups.
• No significant differences were found in cardiac interoception tasks (HEP, Heartbeat Counting, RHI) between the groups.
• The direct relevance of RHI to interoception requires further investigation.

Conclusions:

• Current findings do not support a strong link between regular physical exercise and enhanced cardiac interoception.
• Further research is needed to understand the complex relationship between physical activity and interoceptive processing.