Rominger Christian, Fink Andreas, Perchtold-Stefan Corinna M, Schlögl Laurenz, Schwerdtfeger Andreas R
Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
Psychophysiology. 2025 Apr;62(4):e70051. doi: 10.1111/psyp.70051.
Cardiac interoception is important for health and can be assessed in terms of accuracy (IAcc) and sensibility (IS), at least. While IAcc measures the correspondence between recorded and perceived heartbeats, IS means the confidence in interoceptive perceptions during the task. The present study investigated if brain activity during the heartbeat tracking task is associated with IAcc as well as IS. Specifically, we were interested if task-related power (TRP) in the alpha band (8-12 Hz), known to indicate task-specific cognitive functions such as semantic, attentional, and sensory processes, is associated with IAcc and IS, respectively. In a sample of 30 participants, we found relatively higher TRP in the alpha band over left temporal and parietal areas (vs. right) during the interoception task. Furthermore, we observed a negative association between TRP in the alpha band and IS. Lower TRP in the alpha band might indicate that more pronounced cognitive and sensory processes are linked to higher IS. Furthermore, we found a positive effect for IAcc (independent from IS), which might indicate that more internal attention during the interoception task is beneficial for IAcc. We further discuss the findings in the context of methodological issues of the heartbeat tracking task. Taken together, the pattern of findings favors the investigation of task-related IS (i.e., confidence ratings) in combination with IAcc to gain a better access to interoceptive processes and to improve our understanding of the neural underpinnings of (cardiac) interoception.
心脏内感受对于健康很重要，至少可以从准确性（IAcc）和敏感性（IS）方面进行评估。IAcc衡量记录的心跳与感知到的心跳之间的对应关系，而IS则指任务期间对内感受感知的信心。本研究调查了心跳追踪任务期间的大脑活动是否与IAcc以及IS相关。具体而言，我们感兴趣的是，已知表示语义、注意力和感觉过程等特定任务认知功能的α波段（8 - 12赫兹）中的任务相关功率（TRP）是否分别与IAcc和IS相关。在30名参与者的样本中，我们发现在内感受任务期间，左侧颞叶和顶叶区域（相对于右侧）的α波段TRP相对较高。此外，我们观察到α波段TRP与IS之间存在负相关。α波段较低的TRP可能表明更明显的认知和感觉过程与更高的IS相关。此外，我们发现了对IAcc的积极影响（独立于IS），这可能表明在内感受任务期间更多的内部注意力对IAcc有益。我们进一步在心跳追踪任务的方法学问题背景下讨论了这些发现。综上所述，研究结果模式支持将与任务相关的IS（即信心评级）与IAcc结合起来进行调查，以便更好地了解内感受过程，并增进我们对（心脏）内感受神经基础的理解。
