Electrophysiology of interoception: Parietal posterior area supports social synchronization

ABSTRACT

The effect of explicit interoception manipulation on electrophysiological (EEG) patterns concurrent with an interpersonal motor synchronization task with a social purpose was investigated in this study. Thirty healthy individuals executed a task involving behavioral motor synchronization with a social framing in both focus (conceived as the focus on the breath for a specific time interval) and no focus conditions. During the task, a 15 active electrodes electroencephalogram was used to record the following frequency bands (delta, theta, alpha, and beta band) from the frontal, temporo-central, and parieto-occipital regions of interest (ROIs). According to the results, for all the frequency bands significant higher mean values were found in the focus compared to no focus condition in the parieto-occipital ROI. On the whole, the current work conveys that when a motor synchronization task is executed and the person concurrently pays attention to his/her body correlates, EEG brain activity is empowered and boosted in posterior areas at the basis of attention to visceral signals, but also interpersonal action coordination. This evidence could have potentially interesting implications because it suggests the importance of modern breath-work during all conditions that require a social motor joint task, such as physiotherapy exercises or synchronized sports.

KEYWORDS:

• Interoception
• interoceptive attentiveness
• social synchronization
• motor task
• EEG

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge Simone Greco, Simona Riccardi, and Giulia Fronda for their support in data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Author contributions

Conceptualization, M.B. and L.A.; methodology, M.B. and L.A.; software, M.B. and L.A.; validation, M.B.; formal analysis, M.B.; investigation, L.A.; resources, M.B.; data curation, M.B. and L.A.; writing – original draft preparation, L.A.; writing – review and editing, M.B.; visualization, M.B. and L.A.; supervision, M.B.; project administration, M.B.; funding acquisition, M.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional review board statement

This experimental work was conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy.

The informed consent was collected from all participants recruited in this research.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.