Cardiac interoception in action: examining its dynamics in response to negative emotions (INTERO-DYNAMICS)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Olga Pollatos
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 554528257

Interoception (i.e., the processing of internal body signals) is increasingly recognized as a crucial in emotion processing and as a transdiagnostic factor for psychopathology. Traditionally assessed as a stable trait during resting states in the cardiac domain, recent studies suggest that that interoceptive processes fluctuate based on physiological and emotional states. These fluctuations may provide deeper insights into the link between interoceptive functioning and psychopathology, in line with the predictive coding framework. Emotional induction procedures (e.g., speech task) provide a promising setting for investigating interoceptive dynamics. Furthermore, ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is also a promising approach to better capture emotion regulation processes in daily life. The first study of this project aims to investigate fluctuations in interoception in response to a stressful event (i.e., speech task). It will be also examined whether changes in interoception are related to symptoms of anxiety and depression. The second study of this project aims to examine how interoceptive processes influence the selection and implementation of emotion regulation strategies in daily life through EMA. For the first study, 128 healthy participants recruited at the Ulm University will be randomly assigned to either a stress-inducing speech task or a control task, with interoceptive measures taken before and after. Following the lab session, participants will engage in the second study, a 10-day EMA period, receiving four daily prompts via their smartphones. This project will contribute to the understanding of cardiac interoception –a flourishing field in the scientific literature- and its implications for emotional processing and emotion regulation. The elucidation of the interoceptive mechanisms involved in human emotional experience will open up the possibility of improving current psychological treatments for a wide variety of clinical conditions with disrupted interoception. This project was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Ulm University (451/2023).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Lorena Desdentado Espinosa, Ph.D.