Interoception is the process sensing of the internal state of one's body. It is different from processing external (non-self) inputs such as vision, hearing, touch or smell because the inputs arise in the body itself, not from non-self stimuli outside the body. Interoception is currently hypothesized to be a fundamental source or influence on (i) motivation, (ii) emotions and feelings and the behaviors they generate, (iii) social cognition, and (iv) self-awareness. Inputs to the brain can arise from the various body areas and sources shown below.
Much of the knowledge about interoception arose in the last 20 years or so. A recent study described brain scanning data to help identify the area of the brain that receives inputs from the heart and lungs when a person experiences heart palpitation and labored breathing (dyspnea) associated with panic.[1] The scan data showed that a specific area of the brain (right mid-insular cortex) 'lit up' when subjects experienced palpitation and dyspnea.
In this study, the subjects in the experiments did not experience emotions (anxiety or happiness) and only felt palpitation and dyspnea.
Interoception research focuses on the role of body monitoring in brain function. This research is shaping perception of the brain and internal signals from the body as a highly integrated system that influences emotion and behavior. Dysfunction or mistakes in interpreting internal states, or a disconnect between the body's signals and the brain's interpretation and prediction of those signals, have been suggested to underlie some mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, panic disorder, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), autism spectrum disorders, somatic symptom disorder, and illness anxiety disorder.
Footnote:
1. The authors summarize their results like this: "The mid-insula findings in the present study are especially noteworthy because it has been identified as the most commonly activated insula subregion across all prior studies of cardiac interoception involving directed attention to heartbeat sensations under resting physiological conditions (Schulz, 2016) (Figure 5a). Furthermore, our replication of asymmetric right insula activation during sympathetic stimulation, and hemispheric switching to include left insula activation during the recovery period, corroborates prior animal findings and a theoretical perspective positing a critical role of the right and left insula for mapping sympathetic and parasympathetic arousal, respectively (Oppenheimer and Cechetto, 2016). Taken together, these findings represent compelling evidence that the right mid-insula is a key node in the interoceptive attentional network, one that is essential for both stimulus-driven (bottom-up) and goal-directed (top-down) sympathetic viscerosensation."
B&B orig: 7/5/19
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