title: Event-related brain potentials and the processing of cardiac activity.
abstract: The cortical processing of cardiac afferent input can be studied by means of event-related potentials (ERP), in which characteristic brain waves are seen to accompany rhythmic activity of the heart. In the present paper, results from three studies, investigating the heartbeat-evoked potential are summarized. These studies demonstrated that (a) cardio-afferent input is projected primarily to fronto-cortical areas; (b) typically, this activity is reflected as a broad positive wave form in a range of 300-600 ms after the EKG R-wave; (c) psychological factors such as level of attention and motivation exert influences on the heartbeat-evoked potential which are comparable to effects known from exteroceptive evoked potentials. On the basis of these data we infer that cardio-afferent input is for the most part transmitted along visceral fibers and that the cortical processing of cardiac activity is similar to the processing of external stimuli.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of München, Germany.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schandry
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Montoya
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005073:Evoked Potentials, Somatosensory / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D017833:Visceral Afferents / Q000502:physiology