Is heart rate variability associated with interoceptive accuracy (heartbeat detection)?
Higher heart rate variability is associated with greater interoceptive accuracy in heartbeat detection, suggesting cardiac measures can efficiently index prefrontal-limbic engagement.
= 113) whose prefrontal-(para-) limbic engagement had been determined on basis of a heart rate variability recording. We found a positive association between heartbeat detection and heart rate variability, implying that individuals with higher heart rate variability were more accurate in heartbeat detection than individuals with lower heart rate variability. These findings suggest that our interoceptive accuracy depends on our prefrontal-(para-)limbic engagement during the perception and interpretation of cardiac changes. Our findings also show that cardiac measures may be useful to investigate the association between interoceptive accuracy and prefrontal-(para-)limbic engagement in a time- and cost-efficient manner.
Lischke et al. (Mon,) studied this question.