10th MBB Symposium 2023 | Program and Abstracts

March 14–17, 2023 | Virtual  

 

 

 

Tuesday, 14 March 2023


16:00-17:15 (GMT+1) | Public Lecture

 

 

Chair: Arno Villringer | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, School of Engineering and Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

Consciousness remains one of the central mysteries in science and philosophy. In this talk, I will illustrate how the framework of predictive processing can help bridge from mechanism to phenomenology in the science of consciousness – addressing not the ‘hard problem’, but the ‘real problem’. I will first show how conscious experiences of the world around us can be understood in terms of perceptual predictions, developing an approach some are calling ‘computational (neuro)phenomenology0. I’ll then explore how the experience of being an embodied self can be understood in terms of control-oriented predictive (allostatic) regulation of the interior of the body. This implies a deep connection between mind and life: Contrary to the old doctrine of Descartes, we are conscious because we are beast machines. I’ll finish by describing a recent art-science collaboration – the dreamachine – which involves mass stroboscopically-induced visual hallucinations and a large-scale online survey of ‘perceptual diversity’ – The Perception Census.


17:15-18:30 (GMT+1) | Panel 1: Presentations by Participants

Recording of Panel 1: Please start from 1:10:44

Chair: Antonin Fourcade | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Blindness can be studied as a model system to investigate the role of sensory experience for development, maintenance and plasticity of central sensory representations. This assumption is based on strong empirical evidence: it has been repeatedly shown that visual deprivation is associated with massive cross-modal plasticity. Here, we examined the influence of blindness on two interoceptive submodalities that are important for bodily awareness and emotional processing: cardiac interoception and affective touch. Methods: We tested 36 blind individuals and 36 age and sex-matched sighted volunteers. In experiment 1, we assessed their cardiac interoceptive abilities using the heartbeat counting task. In experiment 2, we measured sensitivity to skin-mediated interoceptive signals by asking about pleasantness of touch delivered in a CT-optimal versus a CT-non-optimal manner, and also implemented a control task of discriminative touch abilities, the grating orientation task. Results: We found that blind individuals perform significantly better than sighted in the task measuring their cardiac interoceptive accuracy. We did not find any significant differences in subjective dimensions of cardiac interoception, as well as purely physiological measurements (e.g., heart rate). In case of the affective touch, we found that blind individuals rate the touch as significantly more pleasant on palm as compared with forearm. We also replicated the previous findings showing enhanced discriminative tactile acuity in the blind. Discussion: To the best of our knowledge, our experiments are the first investigation of both cardiac interoceptive abilities, as well as affective touch sensitivity in the blind. Our results provide an important insight into building blocks of body perception in the absence of vision, given the relevance of interoceptive signals in maintaining a coherent and stable bodily self.

Chairs: Eleni Panagoulas & Antonin Fourcade | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: All perception is shaped by the passing of time – every experience occurs in time. Yet, how we experience the passing of time is highly subjective. When we stare at the hands of a clock, a minute can feel much longer than when we are swept in a fun activity. How this subjective experience of time arises is a hotly debated issue. Salient changes in external milieu (e.g., fluctuations in the visual scene) as well as in motor and internal states (e.g., speed of body movement and level of arousal) have all been postulated to influence duration perception. Here, we focus on the role of interoceptive signals, like the beating of the heart, which provide a continuous background to all information processing. One hypothesis could be that the heart rate itself influences the experience of time. However, investigating durations that encompass multiple heartbeats (> 1s) can be confounded by participants counting. Methods: To avoid this limitation, we present to-be-estimated visual and auditory stimuli of shorter durations (< 400ms) to distinct phases of the heart cycle (systole or diastole). If the heart plays a role in time perception, cardiac signalling should influence perceived durations. Results: Indeed, data from 28 participants suggests that visual and auditory stimuli were perceptually shorter when presented at the systole relative to the diastole. This effect was more pronounced in the visual domain, where temporal perception was generally more imprecise than in the auditory domain. Discussion: One explanation could be that the noise from baroreceptor firing at the systole contaminates perceptual processing resulting in shorter temporal durations – an effect that is more detrimental in visual compared to auditory modality. Overall, these results extend the role of cardiac signalling to temporal exteroceptive processing and propose a mechanism by which the heart affects how we experience time.

Chairs: Eleni Panagoulas & Antonin Fourcade | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Internal bodily signals such as heartbeats can influence human perception and action. For example, somatosensory perception is impaired both during the systolic phase of the cardiac cycle and following stronger cortical responses to heartbeats. Here, we investigate whether these cardiac effects are associated with general changes in cortical excitability. Methods: Cortical and corticospinal excitability was assessed using electroencephalographic and electromyographic responses to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) while monitoring cardiac activity using electrocardiography in thirty-six participants. Single pulses of TMS were applied over the right primary motor cortex of the participants. The experiment included 832 trials divided into four blocks of real and sham TMS conditions. At the end of the TMS experiment, subjects also performed a motor task, in which they squeezed a pinch gauge for three seconds and then relaxed their fingers for three seconds. In this order, subjects performed thirty trials. Results: Our results demonstrated that cortical and corticospinal excitability was maximal during systole as compared to diastole. In line with this finding, in the motor task, muscle activity and desynchronization of sensorimotor oscillations (8-25 Hz) were observed to be stronger following muscle contractions during systole. Complementing these results, we also observed that TMS led to heart-rate decreases specifically in systole but not in diastole. In addition to the cardiac cycle effects, increases in cortical responses to heartbeats, as measured by heartbeat-evoked potentials, predicted stronger corticospinal excitability. Discussion: These findings show that systolic cardiac signals are associated with a facilitatory effect on motor excitability. This is in contrast to the cardiac-related sensory attenuation previously reported for somatosensory perception. Altogether these findings thus suggest that action and perception have distinct windows in the cardiac cycle for optimal information processing.

Chairs: Eleni Panagoulas & Antonin Fourcade | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Psychopharmacological manipulations of the opioid system reduce empathy for pain; however, whether they go beyond emotional perception as far as changing our behavior towards others has never been shown. Methods: In a preregistered study, we investigated the potential downstream effects of such manipulations on prosocial behavior. We induced placebo analgesia in 45 participants (placebo group), while a control group (n = 45) did not undergo this experimental manipulation. Participants then completed a pain task and a prosocial decision-making task, making choices whether to exert physical effort via a hand dynamometer to decrease another participant’s pain. Results: We found that analgesia induced via a placebo pill reduced effortful helping: When given the opportunity to reduce the pain of another person, the placebo group made fewer prosocial choices, helped less quickly, and exerted less physical effort when helping compared to the control group. Furthermore, unpleasantness in relation to another’s pain positively correlated with subsequent prosocial behavior. Discussion: Our study shows that reduced pain sensitivity via placebo analgesia does not only influence how we share and perceive other’s pain, but also crucially shapes our helping behavior. This has broad potential implications for social interactions in people under the influence of opioids or pain conditions.


18:30-19:15 (GMT+1) | Poster Session A

Posters with Poster Nr. & Family Name | Poster Title

19:15-20:00 (GMT+1) | Poster Session B

Posters with Poster Nr. & Family Name | Poster Title

  

Wednesday, 15 March 2023


9:00-9:30 (GMT+1) | *** Discussion of Public Lecture ***

Recording of Olaf Blanke’s Lecture

Recording of Olaf Blanke’s Discussion Session

(Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience Brain-Mind Institute Center for Neuroprosthetics EPFL, Geneva/Switzerland)

Reports of invisible presences, sometimes as conscious and vivid sensory events, are reported across many cultures, and such apparitions may have influenced certain religions and traditions. An invisible presence (or the sense of presence) is defined as the conscious experience that another being, that cannot be seen or heard, is in the person’s immediate vicinity. At least since William James, the sense of presence holds a special place in studies of religious-spiritual experiences. However, a major shortcoming of empirical research was that it lacked tools to experimentally investigated the sense of presence and that they occur unpredictably and most often in situations and locations far away from the research laboratory. Here, I will describe a new sensorimotor method and procedure able to induce such subjective invisible presences safely, repeatedly and under experimentally controlled conditions in the laboratory, using robotics. Highlighting single subjective reports as well as group studies, I will present observations in healthy participants and in neurological patients that allowed us to define the perceptual and neural mechanisms of the sense of presence, including MRI-compatible robotics and brain imaging. These findings show that the sense of presence is based on specific sensorimotor processes, reflecting a misperception of the source and identity of sensorimotor signals of one’s own body and is closely associated with brain mechanisms of agency and self-other discrimination. I will then describe a series of studies in patients with Parkinson’s disease, who frequently experience the sense of presence in daily life, revealing abnormally elevated sensitivity to robot-induced presences in patients with Parkinson’s disease. I conclude by describing our recent efforts to develop improved diagnostics in Parkinson’s disease and will highlight the relevance of hallucination engineering for basic neuroscience and consciousness research.


09:30-10:00 (GMT+1) | *** Discussion of Poster Session A & B***

For poster details please check the program on March 16, 2022 at 18:30-19:15 and 19:15-20:00 (GMT+1) | Poster Session A and Poster Session B


10:00-11:00 (GMT+1) | Keynote Lecture 1

Recording of the Lecture later here:

Chair: Arno Villringer | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

Neuroscience Institute, New York University, School of Medicine, NY

Current neuroscience is largely fueled by an empiricist philosophy that assumes the brain’s goal is to perceive, represent the world, and learn the truth. An inevitable consequence of this framework is the assumption of a decision-making homunculus wedged between our perception and actions. In contrast, I advocate that the brain’s fundamental function is to induce actions and predict the consequences of those actions to support the survival and prosperity of the brain’s host. Only actions can provide a second opinion about the relevance of the sensory inputs and provide meaning for and interpretation of those inputs. In this “inside-out” framework, the brain comes with a preconfigured and self-organized dynamic that constrains how it acts and views the world. In the brain’s nonegalitarian organization, preexisting nonsense brain patterns become meaningful through action-based experience. I will show recent experiments that support this framework and illustrate how seemingly disparate neural computations, such as metabolic homeostasis/allostasis and memory-guided behaviors, have co-evolved at every step within the same brain circuits.


11:00-11:15 (GMT+1) | Break


11:15-13:00 (GMT+1) | Panel 2: Presentations by Participants

Recording of Panel 2

Chairs: Samyogita Hardikar and Felix Klotzsche | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Difficulties in understanding the emotions of others commonly occurs in neurodegenerative diseases. Impaired emotion recognition is characteristic of behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and has been reported in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in the later stages. Cardiac interoception, the ability to interpret and respond to one’s own heartbeat, has been linked to emotion. Research investigating the relationship between cardiac interoception and emotion recognition in neurodegenerative disease is currently scant. Methods: 170 participants (41 AD, AD; 52 bvFTD; 24 PD; 53 controls) were recruited across three international research centres (Argentina, Australia, and Chile). To measure interoception, participants completed two 2-minute behavioural tasks. Participants were asked to press a button each time they: 1) felt their own heartbeat (Cardiac Interoception); or 2) heard a recorded heartbeat (Exteroception). Simultaneous ECG was recorded. Accuracy was calculated by comparing the frequency of the event in the task (e.g., actual, or recorded heartbeat) and to the participant’s response. To measure emotion recognition participants completed either the Facial Affect Selection Task (Australia) or Ekman faces (Argentina, Chile), with accuracy defined as percentage correct. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to identify neural correlates necessary for interoception and emotion. Results: Our results showed that only bvFTD patients were significantly worse than controls at interoception. Worse interoception was associated with worse emotion recognition and this association was driven by bvFTD patients alone. Reduced structural integrity of the insula, orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, striatum, parahippocampal and hippocampus was associated with impairments in interoception and emotion in bvFTD. Discussion: For the first time, we have shown that reduced interoception in bvFTD is related to reduced emotion recognition abilities. Our neuroimaging analyses revealed distinct regions necessary for interoception and emotion. Our findings help to explain the difficulties bvFTD patients experience in the emotional realm and opens opportunities for future interventions targeting interoception and emotion.

Chairs: Samyogita Hardiker and Felix Klotzsche | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Vision provides the most important sensory information for spatial navigation. Recent technical advances allow new options to conduct more naturalistic experiments in virtual reality (VR) while additionally gather data of the viewing behavior with eye tracking investigations. Here, we propose a method that allows one to quantify characteristics of visual behavior by using graph-theoretical measures to abstract eye tracking data recorded in a 3D virtual urban environment. Methods: The analysis is based on eye tracking data of 20 participants, who freely explored the virtual city Seahaven for 90 minutes with an immersive VR headset with an inbuild eye tracker. To extract what participants looked at, we defined “gaze” events, from which we created gaze graphs. On these, we applied graph-theoretical measures to reveal the underlying structure of visual attention. Results: Applying graph partitioning, we found that our virtual environment could be treated as one coherent city. To investigate the importance of houses in the city, we applied the node degree centrality measure. Our results revealed that 10 houses had a node degree that exceeded consistently two-sigma distance from the mean node degree of all other houses. The importance of these houses was supported by the hierarchy index, which showed a clear hierarchical structure of the gaze graphs. As these high node degree houses fulfilled several characteristics of landmarks, we named them “gaze-graph-defined landmarks”. Applying the rich club coefficient, we found that these gaze-graph-defined landmarks were preferentially connected to each other and that participants spend the majority of their experiment time in areas where at least two of those houses were visible. Discussion: Our findings do not only provide new experimental evidence for the development of spatial knowledge, but also establish a new methodology to identify and assess the function of landmarks in spatial navigation based on eye tracking data.

Chairs: Samyogita Hardiker and Felix Klotzsche | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Previous electroencephalography (EEG) research has revealed that threat signals from angry body expressions are processed rapidly as indicated by an effect of angry compared to neutral body postures on the vertex positive potential (VPP) and the N190. Yet it remains unknown whether the early processing stages of threat signals are influenced by the participants' knowledge that the threat is under control or whether, alternatively, early threat processing proceeds irrespective of opportunities for behavior control. Methods: We used a virtual reality (VR) environment including an urban landscape and angry versus neutral approaching avatars, and during the VR sequence we measured EEG with BrainVision Product (63 channels covering the whole cap). Participants could press a button to stop the avatar from coming closer. All trials were preceded by a cue presented 1000±150ms before the avatar's appearance, indicating the chances of successful control over the avatar’s movement (0%/25%50%/75%100%). Participants were instructed to press the response button when they felt uncomfortable, and the timing of the button press served as a behavioral measure of perceived threat. Results: The behavioral results revealed faster button presses in response to angry than neutral avatars, indicating that the angry avatars were perceived as more threatening. There was no effect of cue condition on response time. An analysis of the ERPs revealed smaller occipital P2 (180ms-260ms) amplitudes for the angry compared to the neutral avatar condition, in line with previous research showing an effect of threatening stimuli on early ERPs. Yet, there was no interaction effect with cue condition, indicating that the ability to control the threat did not affect early processing of threat. On the other hand, fronto-central N3 (280-600ms) was modulated by the cue probability with a larger amplitude for the 50% (no control) as compared to the 100% (absolute control) cue condition. Discussion: This indicated that the possibility to control the threat influences processes that follow after the early perceptual processing of the threat. To conclude, our early ERP effects confirm that threatening body expressions are rapidly processed independently of the perceived ability to control the threat, which is then reflected in later cognitive stages.

Chairs: Samyogita Hardiker and Felix Klotzsche | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Research suggests that ongoing thought varies across situations and individuals. Despite this, studies commonly include thought sampling during undemanding task contexts that vary little from study to study. But these contexts are not particularly representative of the everyday situations in which people spend their time. As few studies examine the influence of varying context on thought, we aimed to bridge this gap in the literature by examining how context and individual variation influence thought. Methods: We used experience sampling to investigate how reported thought varied across 9 different task environments, from simple and complex laboratory tasks to more naturalistic everyday tasks. A Principal Component Analysis was used to create a low-dimensional representation of the experience sampling data. This revealed four patterns of ongoing thought: episodic social cognition, unpleasant intrusive, concentration and self-focus. The distribution of these thought patterns across the different task contexts was assessed using Linear Mixed Modelling. Results: We found that different thought patterns were reliably evoked by different task contexts. Additionally, thoughts that were negative and intrusive correlated with measures of depression. Discussion: Our study provides insight into how thoughts can be influenced by different task conditions and individual characteristics. This is a useful way to demonstrate that patterns of thought are evoked by different task environments and highlights the need to broaden the task contexts under which we study ongoing thought.

Chairs: Samyogita Hardiker and Felix Klotzsche | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Even though it has many advantages, living in a city is associated with high incidence of mental disorders, such as major depression, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia. It has been suggested that urban upbringing is the most important environmental factor for developing schizophrenia. Therefore, it is essential to understand how exposure to urban and natural environments affects mental health and the brain. The amygdala, a brain region related to stress and schizophrenia, has been shown to be more activated during a stress task in urban compared to rural dwellers. Nevertheless, intervention studies are needed to demonstrate causal effects of natural and urban environments on stress-related brain mechanisms. Methods: To address this question, we conducted an intervention study investigating effects of a 60-minute walk in urban (busy street in Berlin) vs. natural environment (forest) on brain activity in regions associated with stress. Amygdala activation was measured in 63 healthy participants, before and after the walk, using fMRI stress paradigms. Results: As predicted, the findings reveal that amygdala activation remains stable after the walk in urban environment, whereas it decreases after the walk in nature. Discussion: To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate causal effects of acute exposure to a natural vs. urban environment on stress-related brain regions, disentangling positive effects of nature from negative effects of city. The results strongly argue in favor of salutogenic effects of nature as opposed to urban exposure causing additional stress. This study suggests that going for a walk in nature can have salutogenic effects for stress-related brain regions, and in turn act as a preventive measure against developing a mental disorder. Understanding how urban and natural environments affect stress-related neural mechanisms aims to influence urban design policies to create more green areas and adapt urban environments in a way that are beneficial for citizens’ mental health.


13:00-14:30 (GMT+1) | Break


14:30-15:30 (GMT+1) | Keynote Lecture 2

Recording of Sahib Khalsa’s Lecture

Chair: Michael Gaebler | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

(University of Tulsa; Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa/USA)

The beating heart emits a cascade of signals which rhythmically propagate throughout the body, engaging a myriad of sensors along the way. And yet, most people cannot accurately feel their heartbeat under resting circumstances. From a health perspective, palpitations are the most frequent symptom reported during panic attacks, but they are also common indicators of acute cardiovascular pathology such as a cardiac arrhythmia or myocardial infarction. Deciding whether the problem lies within the body or brain is thus one of the primary interdisciplinary challenges facing medicine and psychiatry, and it is currently unsolved. In this talk, I will introduce interoception and outline the role of interoceptive dysfunction in mental health. Using recent evidence from the emerging field of interoceptive neuroscience, I will argue that interoception is a process critical for arriving at an integrated understanding of the neural interactions between mind, body, and brain that determine physical and mental wellbeing.


15:30-16:15 (GMT+1) | Parallel Workshops 1 and 2

Neuroscience is a subject which is contingent on the scientific method, a method which upholds values of objectivity and scrutiny. Why then, would it participate in gender bias, and thereby be something only of a man's world? The topics of gender and neuroscience are intrinsically overlapping, and paying attention to the gender biases present is important not only to promote gender equality, but also to ensure good scientific research practice. In this talk and discussion, I will briefly outline why gender equality is fundamentally important to neuroscientific study on several levels. This will cover; the lack of equal participation in neuroscientific research, the lack of neuroscience researcher representation and the gender biases present within neuroscientific research itself.

Does all scientific knowledge use the same paradigm? Scientific knowledge can either be seen as a direct representation of reality or a construction shaped by discipline. In the first case, all sciences speak the same language. In the latter case, they do not: neuroscientists observe problems in the world as neuroscience-problems and sociologists as sociology-problems. By discussing how neuroscientific knowledge is shaped and how this compares to practices across sciences, we hope to inspire thinking of neuroscientific research outside of its regular paradigm.


16:15-17:00 (GMT+1) | Parallel Workshops 3 and 4

Clinical work is very time consuming and needs a lot of training. The same is true for research. The case for "Clinician-Scientist": Shouldn't research be based on clinical needs, and shouldn't clinicians know from their own experience about research possibilities and understand the results? The case against "Clinician Scientist": Research is now so complicated, it is best done by full-time researchers. And also, clinicians are best if they focus entirely on their clinical work.

Despite the increasing momentum of the open science movement across the globe, researchers still are divided regarding their openness to opening up their scientific practice. This will be a platform to discuss your experience of and reasons for adopting open science practices in the broadest sense, but also to discuss your worries, hesitations, struggles or reasons against adopting them.


17:15-18:15 (GMT+1) | Keynote Lecture 3

Recording of Aikaterini (Katerina) Fotopoulou’s Lecture

Recording of Aikaterina (Katerina) Fotopoulou’s Discussion Session

Chair: Michael Gaebler | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

(Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, UCL, London/UK)

According to recent neuroscientific theories on self-awareness, interoception has a central role not only in our emotions but also in our sense of self. As a consequence, neurological or psychiatric disorders of the self may be mediated by disruptions of interoception. In this talk, I will provide evidence for the hypothesis that a fundamental aspect of these disruptions is social and more generally, our selfhood has social, relational origins. To support these theoretical claims, I will present a set of studies on the interoceptive self and its disruptions, including neuropsychological, neuropsychiatric and neuroimaging studies in patients with neurological anosognosia and patients with anorexia nervosa. These studies will show how social regulation in infancy and beyond determine how interoceptive, embodied feelings become cognitive and metacognitive models of the self. Genetic, biological or environmental disruptions of such social regulation can lead to self- awareness being dominated either by egocentric, interoceptive priors (as in anosognosia for hemiplegia), or third-person judgements lacking in interoceptive anchoring to the body (as in anorexia nervosa).


19:30-20:00 (GMT+1) | *** Discussion of Panel 2 ***  

Recording of Panel 2

 

Thursday, 16 March 2023


9:00-9:30 (GMT+1)  | *** Discussion of Keynote Lecture 3***

Recording of Aikaterini (Katerina) Fotopoulou’s Lecture

Recording of Aikaterina (Katerina) Fotopoulou’s Discussion Session

Chair: Michael Gaebler | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin

(Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, UCL, London/UK)

According to recent neuroscientific theories on self-awareness, interoception has a central role not only in our emotions but also in our sense of self. As a consequence, neurological or psychiatric disorders of the self may be mediated by disruptions of interoception. In this talk, I will provide evidence for the hypothesis that a fundamental aspect of these disruptions is social and more generally, our selfhood has social, relational origins. To support these theoretical claims, I will present a set of studies on the interoceptive self and its disruptions, including neuropsychological, neuropsychiatric and neuroimaging studies in patients with neurological anosognosia and patients with anorexia nervosa. These studies will show how social regulation in infancy and beyond determine how interoceptive, embodied feelings become cognitive and metacognitive models of the self. Genetic, biological or environmental disruptions of such social regulation can lead to self- awareness being dominated either by egocentric, interoceptive priors (as in anosognosia for hemiplegia), or third-person judgements lacking in interoceptive anchoring to the body (as in anorexia nervosa).


09:30-10:00 (GMT+1) | *** Discussion of Panel 1 ***  

Recording of Panel 1: Please start from 1:10:44


09:30-10:30 (GMT+1) | Keynote Lecture 4

Recording of Rebecca Böhme’s Lecture

Chair: Vadim V. Nikulin | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

(Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience, Linköping/Sweden)

The clearest experience of the self and its physical borders is the experience of being touched. It is also the earliest sensory experience of the self. Touch is crucial for the sensation of having a body and for learning how to distinguish between self and other. Throughout our lifetime, social touch plays a foundational role for both our bodily self and our interaction with others. In this talk, I will discuss the importance of touch for the establishment and the maintenance of a functional bodily self, which forms the basis for higher order functions of the self. I will discuss studies on the neural and behavioral processing of tactile self-other-distinction in neurotypical and neurodiverse populations. My group and I use self-touch and affective touch by others during functional brain imaging to understand how we differentiate between self and other, and how dysfunctions of this process can contribute to an altered sense of self. Social touch is also essential for interpersonal relationships and communication, which I will discuss considering the current pandemic situation, forcing us to keep physical distance.


11:00-11:45 (GMT+1) | Poster Session C

 

Posters with Poster Nr. & Family Name | Poster Title

11:45-12:30 (GMT+1) | Poster Session D


12:30-14:30 (GMT+1) | Break


14:30-15:30 (GMT+1) | Sponsor Workshop

Chairs: Maria Azanova and Paul Steinfath | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

The application fields, in which EEG and fNIRS are utilized as Brain-Imaging-Tools, are continuously getting broader and more diverse. To realize projects under various conditions researchers need nowadays i) compact, light, multi-channel and wireless hardware ii) electrodes/opthodes/caps, which are easy and quick to prepare iii) complementary components, which enable measurements of biosignals last but not least iv) comprehensive yet intuitive, user friendly software plus effortless integration in real-time/multi-modal applications. During the MindBrainBody Symposium we are happy to present our latest developments, which address these requirements of modern science.


15:30-16:45 (GMT+1) | Panel 3: Presentations by Participants

Chairs: Carina Forster and Tilman Stephani | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Although studies about memory problems at the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are controversial, recent studies indicate that metacognition and metacognitive judgments play a critical role in understanding the etiology of OCD. Additionally, stimuli used in memory tasks are related to OCD symptoms (threat relevant), which causes controversies about the external validity of findings. In that study, we examined different metacognitive judgments, namely, the judgment of learning (JOL) and feeling-of-knowing (FOK) under three different episodic memory tasks using stimuli unrelated to OCD symptoms and compared healthy controls. Methods: There were 50 participants diagnosed with OCD and 50 healthy participants who matched with the OCD group regarding gender, level of education, and age. The stimuli in the three tasks used in the study consist of word-word, word-scene, and word-photo pairs. Participants' JOL, FOK and episodic memory performance were measured by these tasks that consisted of learning pairs of stimuli, JOL, FOK judgments, and recognition phases. Results: Results: Variance analyses were conducted for each experimental task to examine the group effect on the variables. Results showed that JOL confidence, JOL accuracy, and recognition performances were significantly differed and OCD group gave lower confidence than control group in all three paradigms (F (1,97) ≥ 6.5 p ≤ .013). FOK confidence was seen significant and higher for control group except word-photo paradigm (F (1,97) ≥ 3,88, p ≤ .05). Discussion: These results indicated that OCD patients had problems in learning, remembering, and metacognitive judgments of episodic events measured by symptom-free stimuli.

Chairs: Carina Forster and Tilman Stephanie | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: A dominant view in the literature is that viewing high-caloric foods leads to increased brain activity in the reward circuitry of overweight people. However, the empirical literature is inconsistent. This may be due to the double-sided nature of high-caloric foods: high in the hedonic, low in the health value. People’s attentional focus may frequently switch from a hedonic to a health focus while viewing foods, complicating the interpretation of results in studies where attentional focus is not controlled (e.g., passive view). Methods: We hypothesize that food-related brain responses are moderated by attentional focus. In this study, attentional focus (hedonic, health, neutral) was manipulated, using a one-back task with food stimuli, while participants (32 healthy-weight, and 29 obese) were in the fMRI. Results: Univariate analysis showed no difference in brain activity for palatable vs. unpalatable foods or for high vs. low-caloric foods. Instead, brain activity was higher in the hedonic than in the health and neutral attentional focus. Multi-Voxel-Pattern-Analysis showed that foods’ palatability and calorie content can be decoded in the mesocorticolimbic system (Frontal Gyrus, Anterior Cingulated, Insula), with results not moderated by BMI. Discussion: So, the level of brain activity is neither proportionate to the reward value of foods, nor moderated by BMI. Instead, the level of brain activity reflects attentional focus, with food palatability and caloric content represented as patterns of brain activity.

Chairs: Carina Forster and Tilman Stephanie | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Autism Spectrum Disorders is a group of neurodevelopmental conditions that affect the capacity to interact with the physical and social environment, among others. A core feature in autism is the presence of restricted and repetitive behaviors that vary in complexity, form and frequency throughout life history. These core features have traditionally been defined as impairments that interfere with the communication competence. Methods: From an embodied approach, these actions could be seen as characteristic ways of interacting with the world. In this sense, we take an enactive and embodied approach to cognition in which we conceive cognitive agents as sensorimotor systems whose perception-action occurs in terms of affordances. Results: This framework provides an integrative view of autism considering affectivity, perception, action, exploration and interaction within a complex and dynamical dimension. We argue that restricted and repetitive behaviors involve sensorimotor patterns that generate particular affective discharges and relations with the environment. We propose that the particular intentionality of skilful and meaningful engagement with the environment in individuals with autism, will be characterized given their sensorimotor system, its development and individual history (umwelt) and their set of possible affordances given a shared form of life (habitat). Discussion: We argue that this skillful engagement with affordances will be influenced by the normativity imposed by the sociomateriality of the situation, and so will the networks of sensorimotor schemes in autism. We propose that different therapeutic applications can be reconceptualized in real time social interactions within this approach. The change in theoretical and methodological paradigms within cognitive science towards autism and other intersubjectivity disorders and how they engage with the world can lead us to more comprehensive, integrative and ethical therapeutic approaches.

Chairs: Carina Forster and Tilman Stephanie | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Given the importance of interoception (the processing of the internal state of the body) in determining well-being and considering the relevance of visceral signals in checking for symptoms of COVID-19 infection (e.g., breathing, and body temperature), in this longitudinal study we tested for changes in interoception and its relationship to well-being, during different stages of the pandemic. Methods: 245 Italian participants who had completed the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA-2) prior to the onset of the pandemic, repeated the questionnaire during the first national lockdown in Italy (11th March – 3 rd May 2020), and three months after restrictions (September 2020). Participants also completed survey measures of depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (STAI), and sleep disturbance (PSQI). A sub-sample of 28 participants, who had completed the heartbeat counting task (HCT) and a measure of heart rate variability (HRV), was tested again remotely using phone applications to detect pulse rate via photoplethysmography. Results: While performance in the heartbeat counting task remained unvaried, MAIA-2 scores consistently increased from before the onset of the pandemic to the quarantine period and remained unvaried three months after. HRV decreased significantly following the onset of the pandemic and also remained unchanged. Scores in depression, anxiety, and sleep deprivation, where highest during the quarantine. Well-being measures during and after the quarantine were predicted by specific regulatory components of interoception (e.g., the ability to regulate distress by attention to body sensations and the experience of one’s body as safe and trustworthy). Discussion: Our findings suggest increased attention towards visceral signals following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with specific regulatory components of interoception predicting lower levels of depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, and stress (HRV). These results highlight the positive role of interoception in contributing to well-being and protecting against stressful life events and can ultimately provide insight for well-being interventions.

Chairs: Carina Forster and Tilman Stephanie | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

Introduction: Whether specific patterns of physiological signals coming from visceral organs trigger a unique emotional state is a hotly debated question. Accruing evidence suggests that gastro-intestinal (GI) signals not only regulate food intake, but also exert a strong influence on higher-order cognition and emotion. However, most of the literature so far explored the contribution of cardiac and respiratory signals, neglecting a possible role of the GI system in the emotional experience. One of the reasons why the internal milieu of the GI system is poorly investigated is because internal organs are difficult to access and monitor. Methods: Here, we tested thirty-one healthy male participants (age: M = 24.42 years) watching a series of short video-clips that reliably triggered four ‘basic’ emotions (fear, disgust, sadness, and happiness) while an ingestible pill monitored the pH, core temperature, and pressure of their stomach and bowel. These internal markers of GI physiology were complemented with self-report ratings of visceral sensations (i.e. gastric, respiratory and cardiac). Results: We found that gastric sensations were mostly evoked by fearful and disgusting stimuli, and that perceived emotions were linked to the stomach activity. Specifically, the more acidic the pH, the higher were the ratings of disgust and fear; the less acidic the pH, the higher participants reported happiness. Discussion: In line with the idea that specific patterns of physiological signals trigger unique emotional states, our findings highlight a crucial role of the stomach in the emotional experience of disgust, fear, and happiness. We anticipate that the present evidence, supported by the novel technology of ingestible pills, will pave the way for exploring the deep side of emotions.


16:45-17:00 (GMT+1) |  Closing Remarks and Award Distribution


17:00-18:30 (GMT+1) | Break


18:30-19:00 (GMT+1)  | *** Discussion of Keynote Lecture 4 ***

Recording of Rebecca Böhme’s Lecture

Chair: Vadim V. Nikulin | MPI CBS Leipzig; MindBrainBody

(Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience, Linköping/Sweden)

The clearest experience of the self and its physical borders is the experience of being touched. It is also the earliest sensory experience of the self. Touch is crucial for the sensation of having a body and for learning how to distinguish between self and other. Throughout our lifetime, social touch plays a foundational role for both our bodily self and our interaction with others. In this talk, I will discuss the importance of touch for the establishment and the maintenance of a functional bodily self, which forms the basis for higher order functions of the self. I will discuss studies on the neural and behavioral processing of tactile self-other-distinction in neurotypical and neurodiverse populations. My group and I use self-touch and affective touch by others during functional brain imaging to understand how we differentiate between self and other, and how dysfunctions of this process can contribute to an altered sense of self. Social touch is also essential for interpersonal relationships and communication, which I will discuss considering the current pandemic situation, forcing us to keep physical distance.


19:00-20:00 (GMT+1) | *** Discussion of Poster Session C & D***

For poster details please check the program on March 18, 2022 at 11:00-11:45 and 11:45-12:30 (GMT+1) | Poster Session C and Poster Session D


20:00-20:30 (GMT+1)  | *** Discussion of Keynote Lecture 1 ***

Recording of Beatrice de Gelder’s Lecture

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