Editorial: Exploring the Interplay of Interoception in Emotion, Cognition, and Mental Health

Daisuke Ueno^1*Kenta Kimura²Hideki Ohira³Jin Narumoto⁴

• ¹Kyoto Women's University, Kyoto, Japan
• ²Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan
• ³Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
• ⁴Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

Shibata et al. (2024) showed that cardiac synchrony alone did not universally modulate selfattribution; instead, effects emerged selectively among individuals with high interoceptive accuracy, highlighting crucial boundary conditions for interoceptive influence on self-related judgments. Kaneno et al. (2024) provided evidence that interoceptive sensibility specifically predicted body ownership in moving rubber-hand illusions, whereas interoceptive accuracy affected agency in context-dependent ways, demonstrating distinct interoceptive pathways shaping bodily selfawareness.Together, these studies underscore the multidimensional, context-sensitive nature of interoception in shaping cognition, emotion, and bodily self-experience. Understanding interoception is crucial due to its pervasive influence across a spectrum of psychological, cognitive, and emotional domains. Interoceptive signals form the foundation upon which subjective experiences of emotion and self-awareness are constructed (Craig, 2002;Seth, 2013). For instance, interoceptive dysfunction has been implicated in various mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, somatic symptom disorders, and eating disorders (Khalsa et al., 2018). This special topic's contributions underscore such clinical significance: Suzuki and Ohira's (2025) work connects disrupted interoceptive awareness and autonomic regulation to emotional vulnerability in PMS, suggesting potential avenues for targeted biofeedback interventions.Interoception also contributes critically to adaptive coping and emotion-regulation strategies across the lifespan. Sato and Saito (2024) posit reduced coherence between subjective emotional experience and facial expressions as a potentially adaptive coping mechanism in older adults, implying interoception's involvement in regulating emotional expression and promoting well-being in aging. Additionally, Cao (2024) theorizes that nostalgic experiences, guided by interoceptivelymediated social needs, operate as cognitive-emotional schemas that restore psychological continuity and meaning-highlighting the interplay between bodily sensations and higher-order cognition.Moreover, the ability of interoceptive signals to dynamically shape the boundaries of the self has profound implications for understanding embodiment and agency. Shibata et al. (2024) and Kaneno et al. (2024) show experimentally how cardiac and proprioceptive signals influence selfattribution and body ownership, illustrating the crucial role interoception plays in maintaining coherent self-representation.Given its broad-ranging impact on mental health, emotion regulation, self-awareness, and cognitive functioning, interoception emerges as not merely a bodily sense, but as a cornerstone of human subjective experience, opening novel avenues for both basic and translational research. Although significant progress has been made in elucidating the mechanisms underlying interoception, notable gaps persist between theoretical frameworks and real-world applications. Firstly, existing research often treats interoceptive dimensions-such as accuracy, awareness, and sensibility-as interchangeable constructs. However, the evidence provided by Suzuki and Ohira (2025) and Kaneno et al. (2024) clearly indicates distinct outcomes when these dimensions diverge, emphasizing the necessity to refine and distinguish interoceptive measurements for clinical and applied contexts. Secondly, despite the widespread use of predictive-coding theories to conceptualize interoception (Seth, 2013), direct empirical demonstrations remain limited primarily to basic sensorimotor contexts, as shown by Zhang et al. (2024). Translating these theories into complex emotional or cognitive phenomena such as nostalgia (Cao, 2024) or age-related emotional coping (Sato & Saito, 2024) is still challenging.Thirdly, a translational bottleneck persists. Many laboratory paradigms, such as the rubber-hand illusion (Kaneno et al., 2024) and heartbeat-synchronization tasks (Shibata et al., 2024), provide robust mechanistic insights but often lack ecological validity, limiting generalization to everyday experiences. Additionally, methodological inconsistencies, especially with popular tasks like heartbeat counting, pose reliability concerns across studies.Finally, clear and validated intervention protocols remain scarce despite identifying promising clinical targets, such as autonomic dysregulation in PMS or multisensory sensorimotor integration in motor disorders. Addressing these gaps is critical for advancing the translational potential of interoception research. Three core themes emerged clearly across these contributions: (1) multisensory integration as a fundamental pathway through which interoception modulates perception-action coupling and selfrepresentation; (2) the critical differentiation between objective (accuracy) and subjective (awareness, sensibility) dimensions of interoception; and (3) distinct adaptive and maladaptive emotionregulation patterns mediated by interoception throughout the lifespan. These papers collectively represent a diverse methodological toolbox-ranging from EEG and EMG coherence analyses to psychophysiological stress paradigms, bodily illusions, and theoretical syntheses. However, methodological diversity also highlights important caveats, including small or homogeneous samples, limited ecological validity, and measurement reliability challenges. Future research should address these issues via preregistration, data-sharing, and methodological standardization. Several promising translational pathways emerge clearly from the featured contributions: Clinical interventions targeting interoceptive awareness could be designed to address autonomic dysregulation in conditions like premenstrual syndrome (PMS), as suggested by findings on impaired autonomic recovery after stress.Neuro-rehabilitation protocols employing multisensory rhythmic stimuli could leverage insights into sensorimotor synchronization, as demonstrated through enhanced β-band cortico-muscular coherence.Emotion-regulation training informed by interoceptive mechanisms might support adaptive emotional coping in older populations, reflecting strategic reductions in subjective-facial emotional coherence.Digital and virtual reality (VR) therapies could use cardiac synchronization to facilitate improved self-attribution and body ownership, thus enhancing embodied interventions in clinical populations. To capitalize on the translational potential demonstrated in these studies, future research should prioritize:Longitudinal studies examining how interoceptive accuracy and sensibility evolve across the lifespan, providing insights into developmental trajectories of emotional coping mechanisms and sensorimotor integration. Large-scale, multimodal studies integrating psychophysiological measures, neuroimaging, and ecological momentary assessments to clarify relationships between interoceptive signals and complex emotional states such as nostalgia.Computational modeling to further refine predictive-coding approaches, particularly in explaining how interoceptive processes underpin multisensory integration and bodily self-awareness.Cross-cultural and gender-specific studies to explore variations in interoceptive mechanisms and their clinical implications, for instance, identifying unique interoceptive profiles in women experiencing PMS.Robust randomized controlled trials systematically evaluating interoceptive training methods, such as biofeedback and rhythmic sensory entrainment, for enhancing interoceptive accuracy, sensibility, and subsequent mental health outcomes. Collectively, the studies presented in this Research Topic significantly advance our understanding of interoception's intricate connections with emotion, cognition, self-awareness, and mental health. By bridging fundamental theory and real-world implications, these contributions provide critical insights into how internal bodily signals shape human subjective experience. Future interdisciplinary collaborations inspired by these findings hold the potential to unlock innovative, personalized interventions capable of enhancing psychological and physical well-being across diverse populations and lifespan contexts.