Neural Sources and Underlying Mechanisms of Neural Responses to Heartbeats, and their Role in Bodily Self-consciousness: An Intracranial EEG Study
Neural Sources and Underlying Mechanisms of Neural Responses to Heartbeats, and their Role in Bodily Self-consciousness: An Intracranial EEG Study
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DOI：
10.1093/cercor/bhx136
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发表时间：
2018-07-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Blanke, Olaf
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Park, Hyeong-Dong;Bernasconi, Fosco;Blanke, Olaf
最近的研究表明，心跳诱发电位（HEP），即对心跳做出反应的大脑活动，是一种有用的神经测量方法，可用于研究脑体相互作用在包括自我意识在内的认知过程中的功能作用。在两项实验中，我们使用颅内脑电图（EEG）研究了（1）HEP 的神经来源，（2）HEP 生成的潜在机制，以及（3）HEP 在身体自我意识中的功能作用。在实验 1 中，我们发现在心跳开始后不久，单个试验的相位分布显着集中在 10% 的记录部位，主要集中在岛叶和鳃盖，但也集中在其他区域，包括杏仁核和额颞叶皮层。这种相浓度并不伴随着光谱功率的增加，并且与光谱功率的变化不相关，这表明HEP生成的基础是相重置，而不是附加的“诱发电位”机制。在实验 2 中，我们进一步旨在从解剖学角度完善之前将 HEP 与身体自我意识联系起来的头皮脑电图数据。我们发现岛叶中的 HEP 调节反映了实验诱导的自我认同感的改变。总的来说，这些结果为 HEP 的神经源和潜在机制及其在自我意识中的功能作用提供了新颖且可靠的电生理学证据。
Recent research has shown that heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEPs), brain activity in response to heartbeats, are a useful neural measure for investigating the functional role of brain-body interactions in cognitive processes including self-consciousness. In 2 experiments, using intracranial electroencephalography (EEG), we investigated (1) the neural sources of HEPs, (2) the underlying mechanisms for HEP generation, and (3) the functional role of HEPs in bodily self-consciousness. In Experiment-1, we found that shortly after the heartbeat onset, phase distributions across single trials were significantly concentrated in 10% of the recording sites, mainly in the insula and the operculum, but also in other regions including the amygdala and fronto-temporal cortex. Such phase concentration was not accompanied by increased spectral power, and did not correlate with spectral power changes, suggesting that a phase resetting, rather than an additive "evoked potential" mechanism, underlies HEP generation. In Experiment-2, we further aimed to anatomically refine previous scalp EEG data that linked HEPs with bodily self-consciousness. We found that HEP modulations in the insula reflected an experimentally induced altered sense of self-identification. Collectively, these results provide novel and solid electrophysiological evidence on the neural sources and underlying mechanisms of HEPs, and their functional role in self-consciousness.