Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 7, 2025
How to Calculate and Validate Inter-brain Synchronization in a fNIRS Hyperscanning Study
Published on: September 8, 2021
Altered Neural Processing of Interoception in Patients With Functional Neurological Disorder: A Task-Based fMRI Study
Petr Sojka1, Tereza Serranová1, Sahib S Khalsa1
1Department of Neurology and Centre of Clinical Neuroscience, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague and General University Hospital in Prague, Prague (Sojka, Serranová); Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, and Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, Oklahoma (Khalsa); Functional Neurological Disorder Unit, Division of Behavioral Neurology and Integrated Brain Medicine, Department of Neurology, Division of Neuropsychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, and Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston (Perez); Functional Neurological Disorder Unit, Division of Behavioral Neurology and Integrated Brain Medicine, Department of Neurology, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, and Gordon Center for Medical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston (Diez).
Functional neurological disorder (FND) patients exhibit disrupted interoception, impacting brain regions like the insula and cingulate cortex. These findings highlight potential biomarkers for FND assessment and monitoring.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychiatry
- Medical Imaging
Background:
- Disrupted interoception is linked to functional neurological disorder (FND).
- No prior functional neuroimaging studies have investigated interoceptive signal processing in FND patients.
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine neural responses during interoception in FND patients using functional MRI.
- To explore relationships between neural activity, heartbeat counting accuracy, and interoceptive trait prediction error (ITPE) in FND.
Main Methods:
- Functional MRI (fMRI) was used to compare neural responses in 38 FND patients and 38 healthy controls (HCs).
- Participants performed a task involving attention to cardiac interoception versus exteroception or rest.
- Univariate and multivariate analyses investigated brain activity, correlating it with behavioral measures.
Main Results:
- FND patients showed reduced neural activation in the right anterior insula and bilateral dorsal anterior cingulate cortex compared to HCs.
- Heartbeat-counting accuracy correlated positively with right anterior insula and ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation in FND patients.
- Interoceptive accuracy and ITPE scores showed complex correlations with neural activity in key brain regions.
Conclusions:
- This study reveals state and trait interoceptive disruptions in FND.
- Findings implicate cingulo-insular (salience network) areas in the pathophysiology of functional seizures and movement disorders.
- These results suggest potential for neurophysiological assessments and biomarkers for FND prognosis and monitoring.
More Related Videos
10:51Real-time fMRI Biofeedback Targeting the Orbitofrontal Cortex for Contamination Anxiety
Published on: January 20, 2012
11:31Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy of the Sensory and Motor Brain Regions with Simultaneous Kinematic and EMG Monitoring During Motor Tasks
Published on: December 5, 2014
