Interoception over a Lifespan: From Neural Mechanism to Clinic Application

Dear Colleagues,

Interoception refers to the sensing and processing of physiological signals originating from the condition of the body. Interoceptive signals, if processed properly, inform us about our homeostatic condition and denote a significant aspect of monitoring health conditions. The neural signal providing an indication of the inner bodily states is central to many aspects of physiological, cognitive, and affective regulations. A growing body of interception research is questioning how to best integrate body–brain (or brain–body) information, thus revealing close structural and functional interactions between the neural ascending and descending pathways that transmit interoceptive regulatory signals. The trajectory of these processes indicates a research topic, and the effect on age and its implications—not only for the healthy population but also those with clinical disorders—stimulates new ideas in areas related to interoceptive research. The current coronavirus disease pandemic has also directed the focus onto interoceptive signals in diseases, suggesting that inner physiological signals are directly implicated in cognition and mental health and offer stimulating ideas to enrich the processes involved in interoception.

By encouraging contributions from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, clinical, and rehabilitation, we take a closer look at interoception from different but interrelated viewpoints: neural and physiological mechanisms, disorders, and interventions considering new recording and stimulation technologies, procedures, and targets. How internal signals such as heartbeats, breaths, gastric contractions, and pain change across one’s lifespan and contribute to bodily awareness and physiological, cognitive, social, and affective regulation are of scientific interest and clinical importance for this research topic. We will consider scientifically rigorous and original papers elucidating behavioral, qualitative, psychophysiological, and neural data as well as theoretical, perspective, and review articles related to interoceptive processes that, in turn, have a strong linkage to changes across a lifespan as well as in different clinical disorders and interventions.

Dr. Mariella Pazzaglia
Dr. Giuseppe Forte
Dr. Francesca Favieri
Dr. Erik Leemhuis
Guest Editors

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• interoception
• self-feeling
• bodily awareness
• pain
• heart
• heartbeat
• breath
• gastric contractions
• stomach
• body perception
• embodied cognition
• interoceptive signals
• COVID-19
• neural markers
• lifespan