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Learn from your heart: dissociable neural markers for objective interoceptive performance and metacognitive awareness in auditory feedback

Tristan A. Bekinschtein1*, Andrés Canales-Johnson1, Carolina Silva2, David Huepe2, Alvaro Rivera-Rei2, Valdas Noreika1, Maria Del Carmen Garcia3, Walter Silva4, Lucas Sedeño4, Lucila Kargieman4, Fabricio Baglivo4, Srivas Chennu5, Agustin Ibanez2, 4 and Eugenio F. Rodriguez6
  • 1 University of Cambridge, Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, United Kingdom
  • 2 Diego Portales University, Chile
  • 3 Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 4 Favaloro University, Argentina
  • 5 University of Cambridge, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, United Kingdom
  • 6 Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile

Background:
Internal bodily processes, such as blood pressure, continuously feed-forward the brain with information required for homeostatic balance While most of the body-brain communications take place unconsciously, some may become available for conscious access, guiding our motivational behaviour and decision-making. Interoception – or visceral perception – may cover such diverse processes, as perception of pain, temperature, hunger, as well as heartbeat cardiovascular awareness. Cardiac interoception can be enhanced by training using auditory feedback (Schandry & Weitkunat, 1990); however, little is known about the neural mechanisms of cardiac interoceptive learning. Here we show distinct neural markers of objective interoceptive performance and its metacognitive awareness when tapping to your own heartbeat.
Method:
EEG sensor and source spaces were used for the analysis of the Heart Evoked Potential (HEP) of 33 normal participants (and one epileptic patient) looking at the differences in EEG signal of the participants trying to tap to their heartbeats before and after auditory feedback.
Results:
EEG amplitude of the heartbeat evoked potential in interoceptive learners was higher compared to non-learners, showing that cardiovascular learning can modulate cortical signature of cardiac activity. Regarding metacognition of learning, participants showing agreement between objective interoceptive performance and metacognitive awareness revealed and increase in gamma phase synchrony (30-45 Hz) after listening to the auditory feedback of their heartbeat, demonstrating for the first time that the emergence of large-scale phase synchronization is associated with conscious access of interoceptive information.
Discussion:
Together, these findings suggest that interoceptive learning may be mediated by the localized cortical response to the heartbeat, whereas metacognitive awareness of learning seems associated to widespread cortical synchronization patterns.

Keywords: Electroencephalography (EEG), Homeostasis, Heart Rate, interoception, gamma synchrony

Conference: ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013.

Presentation Type: Poster

Topic: Attention

Citation: Bekinschtein TA, Canales-Johnson A, Silva C, Huepe D, Rivera-Rei A, Noreika V, Del Carmen Garcia M, Silva W, Sedeño L, Kargieman L, Baglivo F, Chennu S, Ibanez A and Rodriguez EF (2013). Learn from your heart: dissociable neural markers for objective interoceptive performance and metacognitive awareness in auditory feedback. Conference Abstract: ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00147

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Received: 06 Oct 2013; Published Online: 25 Nov 2013.

* Correspondence: Dr. Tristan A Bekinschtein, University of Cambridge, Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, United Kingdom, tristan.bekinschtein@mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk