Bodily Maps of Emotions in Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Case-Control Study

The experience of emotions is accompanied by distinct bodily sensations, consistent across cultures. Irritable bowel syndrome is characterized by altered interoceptive and affective processing, suggesting that individuals with IBS may experience emotions differently in their bodies. This study investigated whether so-called bodily maps of emotions differ between individuals with IBS and healthy controls (HC).

Forty-three individuals with IBS (Rome IV) and 54 HC used the topographical mapping tool EmBODY to color bodily silhouettes marking where sensations were perceived during 13 emotions and a neutral negative affective state. Region-based (abdomen, head, thorax) and whole-body pixel-wise analyses were performed on the resulting body maps to compare emotion-evoked sensations between individuals with IBS and HC using non-parametric one-way ANOVA.

IBS participants showed consistently elevated abdominal sensations across emotional states, and emotional state only modulated abdominal sensations in HC (p < 0.001) but not in IBS (p = 0.17). After correcting for neutral activation, positive emotions (love, happiness) elicited smaller increases in abdominal activation in IBS than in HC (p < 0.03). IBS participants did not show greater abdominal activation during negative emotions relative to HC. Several positive emotions were associated with reduced head-region activation in IBS (p < 0.041), while no group differences emerged in the thorax region.

Individuals with IBS demonstrate altered embodiment of emotional states, characterized by persistent abdominal sensations, limited emotional differentiation, and blunted emotion-specific modulation for positive emotions. Future studies should incorporate concurrent affect ratings and physiological measures to clarify emotion-body interactions in IBS.