1. Neural divergence and convergence for attention to and detection of interoceptive and somatosensory stimuli
- Author
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Clare E. Palmer, Aleksandra M. Herman, Manos Tsakiris, and Ruben T. Azevedo
- Subjects
Cerebral Cortex ,Consciousness ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,05 social sciences ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Awareness ,Right insular cortex ,Somatosensory system ,Insular cortex ,Body awareness ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,050105 experimental psychology ,Interoception ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Detection theory ,Convergence (relationship) ,Psychology ,Divergence (statistics) ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Body awareness is constructed by signals originating from within and outside the body. How do these apparently divergent signals converge? We developed a signal detection task to study the neural convergence and divergence of interoceptive and somatosensory signals. Participants focused on either cardiac or tactile events and reported their presence or absence. Beyond some evidence of divergence, we observed a robust overlap in the pattern of activation evoked across both conditions in frontal areas including the insular cortex, as well as parietal and occipital areas, and for both attention and detection of these signals. Psycho-physiological interaction analysis revealed that right insular cortex connectivity was modulated by the conscious detection of cardiac compared to somatosensory sensations, with greater connectivity to occipito-parietal regions when attending to cardiac signals. Our findings speak in favour of the inherent convergence of bodily-related signals and move beyond the apparent antagonism between exteroception and interoception.
- Published
- 2020