title: Effects of short-term food deprivation on interoceptive awareness, feelings and autonomic cardiac activity.
abstract: The perception of internal bodily signals (interoception) plays a relevant role for emotion processing and feelings. This study investigated changes of interoceptive awareness and cardiac autonomic activity induced by short-term food deprivation and its relationship to hunger and affective experience. 20 healthy women were exposed to 24h of food deprivation in a controlled setting. Interoceptive awareness was assessed by using a heartbeat tracking task. Felt hunger, cardiac autonomic activity, mood and subjective appraisal of interoceptive sensations were assessed before and after fasting. Results show that short-term fasting intensifies interoceptive awareness, not restricted to food cues, via changes of autonomic cardiac and/or cardiodynamic activity. The increase of interoceptive awareness was positively related to felt hunger. Additionally, the results demonstrate the role of cardiac vagal activity as a potential index of emotion related self-regulation, for hunger, mood and the affective appraisal of interoceptive signals during acute fasting.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Tuebingen, Eberhard-Karls-University Tuebingen, Germany. beate.herbert@gmx.de
authors.forename: Beate M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Herbert
authors.forename: Cornelia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Herbert
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Pollatos
authors.forename: Katja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Weimer
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Enck
authors.forename: Helene
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sauer
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zipfel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001341:Autonomic Nervous System / Q000502:physiology*; D001364:Awareness; D002302:Cardiac Output; D004562:Electrocardiography; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005508:Food Deprivation / Q000502:physiology*; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013318:Stroke Volume; D055815:Young Adult