When Body and Space Shape Perceived Health: Spatial and Interoceptive Processes in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

Background: Aging involves complex interactions among cognitive, bodily, and spatial processes that may contribute to autonomy and health-related quality of life. Although these processes have been investigated in relation to cognitive functioning, less is known about how spatial and bodily processes are associated with subjective health during cognitive aging. This issue is particularly relevant in amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI), a condition associated with cognitive changes that may affect spatial processing and perception of bodily states. The present study examined associations between egocentric and allocentric spatial processing, assessed through positive, negative, and neutral emotional stimuli, self-reported body awareness, and health-related quality of life in older adults (OA) and individuals with aMCI. Methods: Participants completed an egocentric-allocentric spatial task, the Body Perception Questionnaire-Body Awareness (BPQ-BOA), and the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). Associations were examined separately for the two groups across eight SF-36 domains using bootstrap-based LASSO variable selection followed by multiple regression analyses. Results: In OA, Physical Functioning was positively associated with egocentric spatial performance for positive and neutral stimuli, while negative allocentric performance was negatively associated with Emotional Well-Being. In aMCI, Physical Functioning was positively associated with positive allocentric performance and self-reported body awareness, whereas positive egocentric performance and body awareness were negatively associated with Emotional Well-Being and Energy/Fatigue. Emotionally valenced spatial conditions were represented across several models, suggesting that emotional context may be relevant to the observed associations. Conclusions: The findings suggest that spatial processing and self-reported body awareness show domain-specific patterns of association with perceived health in OA and aMCI. However, given the cross-sectional design and the small sample size, the distinct patterns observed within each group should be interpreted more as reflecting correlational variations in individual profiles than structural or mechanistic changes in body-environment integration. Further studies using larger samples and longitudinal designs, complemented by behavioral, physiological, and neuroimaging measures, may help establish the reproducibility of these patterns and clarify their underlying processes.