Neural Mechanisms of Interoceptive Representation and Regulation

人类的大脑会不断更新身体内部状态的表征，这一过程被称为内感受。本研究的长期目标是了解支持内感受的神经机制，以及如何有效、客观地评估内感受能力。利用行为、心理生理学和功能磁共振成像（fMRI）方法，我们打算研究内感受如何将生理学与认知结合起来，从而为情感体验提供信息，以及这些过程最终如何塑造主观意识的心理和神经基础。此外，我们将研究内感受性注意是否构成一种唤醒调节形式，可用于实现有价值的生理状态。从生理、神经和认知的角度考虑情感，将使我们对人类情感有更全面的了解。******将被测试的神经科学模型是根据申请人之前的工作提供的信息，表明从后岛的初级表征到前岛和邻近的前额叶皮层的动机背景整合的内感受途径。为了实验表征这些网络，提出了4个研究集群。首先，我们将使用一种新的实验范式，该范式依赖于呼吸感觉的区分，以更好地表征内感受能力的个体差异。其次，我们将从短暂的内感受性注意和通过正念训练计划长期培养的内感受性注意两方面考察内感受性注意对情绪体验的影响，检验情绪体验的强度是其内感受性基调的产物这一假设。第三，我们将使用这些新范式来研究内感受性和外感受性注意的神经相关性，以更好地表征大脑内感受性加工的独特功能成分。最后，我们将研究内感受性注意对自我调节的影响，包括生理唤醒在决策中的作用结构，以及情绪激发后这种唤醒的解决。******这项研究解决了一个由来已久的争论，即情绪在多大程度上起源于内脏身体信号。它还帮助我们理解情感体验的时间动态，情绪调节，以及意识在表现和调节身体变化中的作用。

The human brain continuously updates representations of one's internal body state, a process known as interoception. The long-term goals of this research program are to understand the neural mechanisms supporting interoception and how to efficiently and objectively assess interoceptive capacity. Using behavioral, psychophysiological, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methods, we intend to examine the psychological and neural bases for how interoception integrates physiology with cognition to inform emotional experience, and ultimately how these processes shape subjective awareness. Furthermore, we will examine whether interoceptive attention constitutes a form of arousal regulation that may be used to achieve valued physiological states. Consideration of emotion in terms of its physical, neural, and cognitive components will provide a more complete understanding of human emotion.******The neuroscience model to be tested is informed by the applicant's prior work, suggesting an interoceptive pathway from primary representation in the posterior insula to integration with motivational context in the anterior insula and adjacent prefrontal cortex. To experimentally characterize these networks, 4 clusters of research are proposed. First, we will use a novel experimental paradigm that relies on discrimination of respiratory sensation to better characterize individual differences in interoceptive capacity. Second, we will examine the impact of interoceptive attention on emotional experience, from both transient interoceptive attention and as chronically cultivated through mindfulness training programs, testing the hypothesis that the intensity of emotional experience is a product of its interoceptive tone. Third, we will examine the neural correlates of interoceptive and exteroceptive attention using these novel paradigms to better characterize the unique functional components of interoceptive processing in the brain. Finally, we will examine the impact of interoceptive attention on self-regulation, both in terms of structuring the physiological arousal's role in decision making and in terms of the resolution of such arousal following emotion provocation. ******This research addresses an age-old debate around the extent to which emotions originate in visceral body signals. It also informs our understanding of the temporal dynamics of affective experience, emotion regulation, and the role of conscious awareness in representing and regulating changes within the body.