Ep.07. The Body Keeps the Beat

Paper: Engelen, T., Solcà, M., & Tallon-Baudry, C. (2023). Interoceptive rhythms in the brain. Nature Neuroscience, 26, 1670–1684. Key concepts: Interoception, heartbeat-evoked response (HER), heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP), cardiac cycle effects, pulsed inhibition hypothesis, baroreceptors, nucleus tractus solitarius, pre-Bötzinger complex, nasal respiration, limbic entrainment, gastric slow wave, interstitial cells of Cajal, gastric network, scaffolding hypothesis, oscillatory synchrony, predictive coding, allostasis, multisensory integration, depersonalization disorder, default mode network, bodily self-consciousness.Further reading:Azzalini, D., Rebollo, I., & Tallon-Baudry, C. (2019). Visceral signals shape brain dynamics and cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23, 488–509.Seth, A. K. (2013). Interoceptive inference, emotion, and the embodied self. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17, 565–573.Barrett, L. F., & Simmons, W. K. (2015). Interoceptive predictions in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16, 419–429.Cognitive observation: The next time we feel our own heartbeat — at rest, under the fingers, or in a moment of sudden alertness — we are noticing one of the rhythms currently modulating our perceptual threshold, our self-related thought, and the neural basis of the sense that this experience is ours.