Individual Differences in Cortical Evoked Potentials as a Function of Heartbeat Detection Ability

Much work has been done to assess individual differences in the ability to detect visceral activity, and most of this work has focused on heartbeat detection ability. This experiment attempted to determine if some underlying cortical event is associated with heartbeat detection ability, and further, to assess whether this cortical event is lateralized to the right hemisphere. Event-related cortical potentials, time-locked to the EKG R-wave and averaged over 400 samples, were studied at Fz, Cz, F7, and F8 in 12 subjects. The primary dependent measure of heartbeat detection accuracy was the standard deviation of the mean temporal latency, measured from peak EKG R-waves to the subjects' report of physical sensation of heartbeats. A significant relationship was found between the amplitudes of event related potentials (ERPs) in the right hemisphere and heartbeat detection accuracy.