Interoception the foundation for: mind’s sensing of ‘self,’ physiological responses, cognitive discrimination and dysregulation

ABSTRACT

This article presents a theory of mind whereby interoception (i.e., a sense of signals originating from the body) provides a transdisciplinary framework in which theories from diverse fields may be conformed to ideas from other areas of science. Through a science of interoception, the mind itself investigates the mind and thus can explore how the universe and consciousness came about and understand how interoceptive processing is shaped by experience. Interoception provides a metastable network that enables individuals to compute the significance of stimuli as physiological changes in its complex global context. Both sensory and much cognitive discrimination and integration are affected by the flow of interoceptive information that acts as cues whereby unconscious events may be correlated with conscious events and the reportable content of mental life. Heightened interoceptive sensitivity and individuals who show augmented interoceptive sensitivity are susceptible to a wide range of neuropsychiatric as well as general medical conditions. Physiological responses can be measured and interoceptive awareness cultivated to generate well-being and stress resilience in the treatment of emotional dysregulation and interoceptive abnormalities.

KEYWORDS:

• Interoception
• mind
• energy
• emotional Dysregulation
• consciousness
• bayesian Inference
• interoceptive Exposure

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank John E. Calamari, Ph.D., Mark T. Wright, M.D., and Lorelei McClure for their comments that allowed the refining of this theory.

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The author has no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

The author has no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

The author certifies that she has no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

The author has no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article.

Ethics approval

This is not a study that involved human participants or animals and no ethical approval is required.

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Consent does not apply to this article as no human participants or animals were involved and no informed consent is required.

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Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

Additional information

Funding

The author did not receive support from any organization for the submitted work. No funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript. No funding was received for conducting this study. No funds, grants, or other support was received.