The ability to understand emotions is associated with interoception‐related insular activation and white matter integrity during aging

Abstract

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is a major cause of cognitive impairment in elderly people. While most research focuses on the role of the classical vascular risk factors in SVD, a description of the psychophysiological mechanisms leading to the age-related brain damage may open new possibilities for prophylaxis. In the current study, we evaluated the associations between emotional abilities, interoception, and age-related vascular white matter degeneration. The work was influenced, first, by multiple studies recognizing alexithymia as a cardiovascular risk factor; second, by theories of emotions linking body's allostasis and emotional regulation; and third, by neuroimaging data highlighting the shared role of the insular cortex in interoceptive and emotional processing. In a sample of older female adults (N = 30), we performed the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, functional MRI using the heartbeat detection task, and evaluation of white matter microstructural integrity using diffusion weighted imaging. The ability to understand and analyze emotions-one of the four components of emotional intelligence-was found to be associated with higher interoception-related activation of the right anterior insula and preserved white matter microstructure. We interpret these results in light of the concept of Embodied Predictive Interoception Coding, which proposes that emotional processing, interoception, and allostasis (antecedent top-down regulation of the body's internal milieu) may rely on the shared neural mechanisms of predictive coding. The study demonstrates feasibility of the investigation of cerebrovascular diseases form a psychophysiological perspective and calls for future research.

Interoception during aging: Functional neuroimaging data from a heartbeat detection task

“…Thirty-eight subjects also participated in the dynamic rubber hand illusion experiment in a classroom environment. Part of this dataset including 30 females aged 40–65 years was used in a study evaluating the links between emotional intelligence and age-related white matter changes [2] and also in a study targeted at the description of top-down and bottom-up circuits of sensory integration in interoception [3] .…”

Enhancing Brain Connectivity With Infra-Low Frequency Neurofeedback During Aging: A Pilot Study

“…Nine participants were enrolled in the intervention group from a sample of female non-physician healthcare workers who participated in our previous study on the role of emotional regulation and interoception in age-related white matter changes (Dobrushina et al, 2020a ). The following inclusion criteria were used: age from 40 to 65 years; female; no history of cardiovascular events, such as stroke or myocardial infarction; no severe white matter hyperintensities according to structural MRI—modified Fazekas score of 2 or less (Fazekas et al, 1987 ); and the presence of subclinical signs of emotional dysregulation, including anxiety, mild depression, and somatoform symptoms.…”

“…At enrollment and after the course of neurofeedback the participants underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The participants also completed a set of questionnaires: the Toronto Alexithymia Scale 20 (TAS-20, Bagby et al, 1994 ), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI, Beck et al, 1961 ) and the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI, Spielberger et al, 1983 ) a total of three times: 2 to 4 months before enrollment (as a part of the previous study; see Dobrushina et al, 2020a ), at enrollment and after the neurofeedback course. The questionnaire data were analyzed in the R project (packages “ggpubr”, “ggplot2”, and “reshape”) with the use of the Friedman test with subsequent Wilcoxon pairwise comparisons (Bonferroni correction).…”

“…The age-related emotional decline is thought to be based on altered functional activation and connectivity in the brain areas related to self-referential and socioemotional processing, including the visual and sensorimotor networks (Lyoo and Yoon, 2017 ) and the insular cortex (Dobrushina et al, 2020a ). At the same time, emotional aging is associated with increased intra-network connectivity within the executive control network and also with increased inter-network connectivity between the executive control network and the default-mode network, suggesting a stronger top-down vs. bottom-up integration of self-referential information (Lyoo and Yoon, 2017 ).…”

Beyond attention, executive function & memory—Re‐socializing cerebral small vessel disease

“…Interestingly, the other relevant study identified in our systematic literature search underlines the relevance of social deficits in SVD as it shows that the ability to understand emotions is associated with white matter integrity during aging. 7 Furthermore, the authors discuss that multiple studies recognized alexithymia, that is, the inability to identify and describe emotions experienced by one's self or others, as a cardiovascular risk factor.…”