Links among emotional awareness, somatic awareness and autonomic homeostatic processing

Abstract

Emotional awareness and somatic interoceptive awareness are essential processes for human psychosomatic health. A typical trait of lacking emotional awareness related to psychosomatic symptoms is alexithymia. In contrast, alexisomia refers to the trait of lacking somatic awareness. Links between emotional and somatic awareness and homeostatic processing are also significant for the psychosomatic health. The purpose of the present paper is to review the links among emotional awareness, somatic interoceptive awareness and autonomic homeostatic processing. On the basis of the collected evidence, the following arguments were presented1: (1) The main subcortical neural substrates for these processes are limbic-related systems, which are also responsible for autonomic functions for optimization of homeostatic efficiency. (2) Considerable studies have shown that autonomic activity and/or reactivity to stress correlate with both emotional and interoceptive awareness. A hypothesis was advocated about the links between the two types of awareness and autonomic function: Autonomic dysfunction, especially high sympathetic tone at baseline and/or attenuated reactivity or variability to stress, appears to be involved in disturbance of emotional and interoceptive awareness. (3) Several studies suggest that a link or a cooperative relationship exists between emotional and somatic awareness, and that somatic awareness is the more fundamental of the two types of awareness. Emotional awareness, somatic awareness and autonomic homeostatic processing generally occur in parallel or concurrently. However, some complex features of pathologies include coexistence of reduced interoceptive awareness and somatosensory amplification. The autonomic homeostatic process is fundamentally involved in emotional and somatic awareness. Investigation of these types of awareness with both neuroimaging evaluations and estimation of peripheral autonomic function are required as next steps for exploration of the relationship between awareness and human somatic states including somatic symptoms as well as general psychosomatic health.

Psychomotor therapy for anger and aggression in mild intellectual disability or borderline intellectual functioning: an Intervention Mapping approach

“…As stated by Cali and colleagues (2015) IA is shown to be a complex construct as it is closely related to interoceptive accuracy (the accuracy of one's own body signals), and emotional susceptibility (the tendency to experience feelings of discomfort when emotionally aroused) (Cali, Ambronsini, Piconi, Mehling and Committeri, 2015). How these concepts can be accurately measured is still a topic of debate in scientific research (Kanbara & Fukunaga, 2016). intervention.…”

The Time Course of Dorsal and Rostral-Ventral Anterior Cingulate Cortex Activity in the Emotional Stroop Experiment Reveals Valence and Arousal Aberrant Modulation in Patients with Schizophrenia

“…The dACC, amygdala and hippocampus are assumed to be part of a network system within the HPA axis that also regulates emotional arousal (Fuchs et al 1985 ; Heckers and Konradi 2002 ; Östlund et al 2003 ; Goldstein et al 2005 ; Kober et al 2008 ; Kanbara and Fukunaga 2016 ). The HPA axis is found to be disturbed in SZ subjects with severe negative symptoms (Kaneko et al 1992 ).…”

Self-Active Relaxation Therapy (SART) and Self-Regulation: A Comprehensive Review and Comparison of the Japanese Body Movement Approach

“…It is possible that SART facilitates aspects of affect labeling vis-à-vis its emphasis on body state labeling in the pre- and post-assessment. Further research is necessary to understand if the way that SART emphasizes body awareness incurs or enhances body state labeling through assessment, and one approach might be to determine its utility in known groups such as those with alexithymia or alexisomia (Kanbara and Fukunaga, 2016 ).…”

“…While it is theorized to be less volitionally attending, it remains to be seen if SART can enhance attention to interoceptive sensations via the MAIA or the ESSS and improve self-regulation in the same way as other bodymind practices, such as body scan training (Bornemann et al, 2014 ; Farb et al, 2015 ). It seems plausible that the self-regulation afforded by SART is one that allows the user to relax their body on their own to help overcome the homeostatic dysregulation caused by disruptive events (Kanbara and Fukunaga, 2016 ).…”