Having the Heart to Exercise Control: Cardiac Interoception Influences Self-Paced Exercise Regulation.

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Physiology
• Exercise Science
• Interoception Research

Background:

• Interoception, the sense of the internal bodily state, is crucial for homeostatic regulation.
• Cardiac interoception, specifically, relates to sensing heartbeats and is linked to physiological awareness.
• Individual differences in cardiac interoceptive accuracy may affect exercise behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of cardiac interoceptive accuracy on self-regulated and externally prescribed exercise.
• To determine if individuals with good versus poor cardiac interoceptive accuracy differ in their physiological and performance responses during exercise.

Main Methods:

• Cardiac interoceptive accuracy was assessed using heartbeat tracking and discrimination tasks.
• Participants were categorized into GOOD and POOR cardiac interoceptive accuracy groups.
• Two experiments involved self-regulated and externally prescribed cycling tasks at varying intensities and durations.

Main Results:

• In self-regulated exercise, the POOR cardiac interoception group exhibited less variation in work rates and physiological responses between exercise intensities.
• This difference was linked to altered work rates during the initial stages of both light and hard-to-very hard intensity exercises.
• No significant differences were observed between GOOD and POOR groups in time-to-task failure or physiological/perceptual responses during externally prescribed exercise.

Conclusions:

• Individual differences in cardiac interoceptive accuracy significantly influence the regulation of self-paced exercise.
• Cardiac interoception does not appear to affect exercise tolerance during externally prescribed, constant-load exercise.
• Findings highlight the role of internal bodily signals in modulating self-directed physical exertion.