Michael Gaebler | Neuroscience beyond the brain: heart-brain interactions in emotion, perception, and behaviour

To optimally adapt to our ever-changing environments, our brain continuously integrates exteroceptive and interoceptive information, that is, signals received from external (e.g., through vision or touch) and internal sources (e.g., through viscerosensation or proprioception). Particularly the coupling between the heart and the brain or - more generally - between the autonomic and the central nervous system plays a major role for mental processes and behavior. I will present studies, in which we found (1) an association between resting heart rate variability (HRV) and resting-state functional connectivity, (2) task-related HRV changes in response to emotion or stress, and (3) that perception and behavior vary across the cardiac cycle. Showing the psychological relevance of both directions of the heart-brain axis suggests the "rest of the body’s" importance for the mind and contributes to a more comprehensive investigation of mind-brain-body interactions.