Interoceptive Awareness and Anorexia Nervosa: When Emotions Influence the Perception of Physiological Sensations

Author: Robin Wollast1, Pierre Fossion2, Ilios Kotsou1, Audrey Rebrassé1, Christophe Leys1
Affiliation:
1 Center for Social and Cultural Psychology.
2 CHU Saint-Pierre, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium.
Conference/Journal: J Nerv Ment Dis
Date published: 2022 May 1
Other: Volume ID: 210 , Issue ID: 5 , Pages: 390-393 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1097/NMD.0000000000001458. , Word Count: 134


Anorexia nervosa (AN) is related to difficulties in emotion regulation, including a deficit in interoceptive awareness. The lack of interoceptive awareness is considered a vulnerability involved in the development and maintenance of anorexic symptoms. Surprisingly, no study has been conducted that focuses on these associations in an emotional context. This study measures the interoceptive awareness-using heartbeat self-counting and a sphygmomanometer-of 25 subjects suffering from AN and 25 control subjects, first at rest and then in an emotional situation. The results show that a deficit in interoceptive awareness was observed for the subjects suffering from AN at rest as well as when an emotional context was induced. This study encourages future investigations to focus on the impact of interoceptive deficit in AN to develop as efficient a care regimen as possible for these subjects.


PMID: 35413032 DOI: 10.1097/NMD.0000000000001458

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