Just a heartbeat away from one's body: interoceptive sensitivity predicts malleability of body-representations

Tsakiris, Manos; Jiménez, Ana Tajadura; Costantini, Marcello

doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.2547

Cited by 447 publications

(546 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…This result might tie to weakened sense of limb ownership reflected in a more malleable body representation. Such stronger malleability has been shown using the RHI paradigm in other patients with disorders of the bodily self such as patients with schizophrenia Interestingly, even in healthy participants a weak bodily self awareness is associated with a stronger RHI (Tsakiris, Tajadura-Jimenez, & Costantini, 2011), and experimentally cooling down the temperature of the real hand has been shown to facilitate the RHI (Kammers, Rose, & Haggard, 2011). While the finding of a stronger illusion for participants with xenomelia could suggest reduced proprioception and/or heightened visual capture, such an interpretation has its own caveats: the more pronounced susceptibility was limited to the consciously rated illusion vividness.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 66%

Disturbed body integrity and the “rubber foot illusion”.

2015

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Objective: Xenomelia, that is, the nonacceptance of one's own limb, is an intriguing but little understood condition. We sought to further test the most prominent neuroscientific hypothesis that suggests xenomelia results from a breakdown in multisensory integration for the affected body part. Method: A "rubber foot illusion" paradigm was developed and tested in healthy participants and in individuals with a desire for left foot amputation (xenomelia). Behavioral and physiological responses quantified illusory ownership of a fake foot after synchronous and asynchronous stroking of a visible rubber foot and the subject's own hidden foot. Results: Healthy participants (n = 15) showed a rubber foot illusion similar to the well-known rubber hand illusion. Individuals with xenomelia (n = 9) experienced the rubber foot illusion in a way comparable to healthy controls. The only difference in the individuals with xenomelia was an increase in the vividness of the illusion for the undesired limb. This vividness of the illusion correlated positively with the strength of amputation desire. Conclusion: These findings might reflect the malleable sense of the body in xenomelia and suggest a weakened representation of the affected body part. These findings may support the use of multisensory stimulation in therapeutic settings. Objective: Xenomelia -i.e. the non-acceptance of one's own limb -is an intriguing but littleunderstood condition. This study aimed to further test the most prominent neuroscientific hypothesis that suggests it results from a breakdown in multisensory integration for the affected body part. Method:A "rubber foot illusion" paradigm was developed and tested both in healthy participants as well as in individuals with a desire for left foot amputation (xenomelia). Questionnaire, behavioral and physiological responses quantified illusory ownership of a fake foot after synchronous and asynchronous stroking of a seen rubber foot and the hidden own foot.Results: Healthy participants (n=15) showed a rubber foot illusion similar to the known rubber hand illusion. Furthermore, individuals with xenomelia (n=9) experienced the rubber foot illusion in a comparable way to healthy controls. The only difference was an increased vividness of the illusion for the undesired limb. This vividness of the illusion was further positively correlated to the strength of amputation desire. Conclusions:These findings might reflect the malleable sense of the body in xenomelia and suggest a weakened representation specifically of the affected body part. They might further pave the way for the use of multisensory stimulation in therapeutic settings.Keywords: Body image identity disorder (BIID), multisensory integration, amputation desire, xenomelia, neuropsychiatryXenomelia designates the non-acceptance of one or several limbs by non-psychotic individuals (McGeoch et al., 2011). Usually first noticed in childhood, the failure to integrate the limb into one's bodily self typically gets stronger during puberty and may culminate i...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 66%

Disturbed body integrity and the “rubber foot illusion”.

2015

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“…Interestingly, a recent study has shown that interoceptive awareness, measured by a heartbeat detection task, is negatively correlated with the intensity of the RHI. Subjects with higher interoceptive awareness were less prone to experience the illusion (Tsakiris, Tajadura-Jiménez, & Costantini, 2011;see Tajadura-Jimenez et al, 2012 for similar results for the ''enfacement'' illusion). This result suggests that subjects with high interoceptive awareness (linked to insula function) are less ready to experience ownership for other stimuli, probably because they have a stronger sense of ownership for their own body.…”

Section: Body Ownership From the Insidementioning

confidence: 80%

Bodily ownership and self-location: Components of bodily self-consciousness

Serino

Alsmith

Costantini

et al. 2013

Consciousness and Cognition

Self Cite

208

170

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a b s t r a c tRecent research on bodily self-consciousness has assumed that it consists of three distinct components: the experience of owning a body (body ownership); the experience of being a body with a given location within the environment (self-location); and the experience of taking a first-person, body-centered, perspective on that environment (perspective). Here we review recent neuroimaging studies suggesting that at least two of these components-body ownership and self-location-are implemented in rather distinct neural substrates, located, respectively, in the premotor cortex and in the temporo-parietal junction. We examine these results and consider them in relation to clinical evidence from patients with altered body perception and work on a variety of multisensory, body-related illusions, such as the rubber hand illusion, the full body illusion, the body swap illusion and the enfacement illusion. We conclude by providing a preliminary synthesis of the data on bodily self-consciousness and its neural correlates.

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“…In the Rubber Hand Illusion, for example, a fake hand can be experienced as one's own if it is stroked at the same time and rate as the genuine (but concealed) body part (Botvinick and Cohen, 1998). Interestingly, people with poor interoceptive sensitivity tend to report a stronger illusion (Tsakiris et al, 2011). A more prosaic example is the illusory sense of motion that is often experienced when sitting on a stationary train and observing a neighboring train depart.…”

Section: Interoception Expectations and The Sense Of Selfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Symptoms and the body: Taking the inferential leap

Bergh

Witthöft

Petersen

et al. 2017

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

382

354

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a b s t r a c tThe relationship between the conscious experience of physical symptoms and indicators of objective physiological dysfunction is highly variable and depends on characteristics of the person, the context and their interaction. This relationship often breaks down entirely in the case of "medically unexplained" or functional somatic symptoms, violating the basic assumption in medicine that physical symptoms have physiological causes. In this paper, we describe the prevailing theoretical approach to this problem and review the evidence pertaining to it. We then use the framework of predictive coding to propose a new and more comprehensive model of the body-symptom relationship that integrates existing concepts within a unifying framework that addresses many of the shortcomings of current theory. We describe the conditions under which a close correspondence between the experience of symptoms and objective physiology might be expected, and when they are likely to diverge. We conclude by exploring some theoretical and clinical implications of this new account.

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Just a heartbeat away from one's body: interoceptive sensitivity predicts malleability of body-representations

Cited by 447 publications

References 23 publications

Disturbed body integrity and the “rubber foot illusion”.

Disturbed body integrity and the “rubber foot illusion”.

Bodily ownership and self-location: Components of bodily self-consciousness

Symptoms and the body: Taking the inferential leap

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