@article{HerbertPollatos2012,
  author    = {Herbert, Beate M. and Pollatos, Olga},
  title     = {The body in the mind On the relationship between interoception and embodiment},
  series = {Topics in cognitive science},
  volume    = {4},
  journal   = {Topics in cognitive science},
  number    = {4},
  publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell},
  address   = {Hoboken},
  issn      = {1756-8757},
  doi       = {10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01189.x},
  pages     = {692 -- 704},
  year      = {2012},
  abstract  = {The processing, representation, and perception of bodily signals (interoception) plays an important role for human behavior. Theories of embodied cognition hold that higher cognitive processes operate on perceptual symbols and that concept use involves reactivations of the sensory-motor states that occur during experience with the world. Similarly, activation of interoceptive representations and meta-representations of bodily signals supporting interoceptive awareness are profoundly associated with emotional experience and cognitive functions. This article gives an overview over present findings and models on interoception and mechanisms of embodiment and highlights its relevance for disorders that are suggested to represent a translation deficit of bodily states into subjective feelings and self-awareness.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{PollatosFuestoesCritchley2012,
  author    = {Pollatos, Olga and Fuestoes, Juergen and Critchley, Hugo D.},
  title     = {On the generalised embodiment of pain: how interoceptive sensitivity modulates cutaneous pain perception},
  series = {Pain : journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain},
  volume    = {153},
  journal   = {Pain : journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain},
  number    = {8},
  publisher = {Elsevier},
  address   = {Amsterdam},
  issn      = {0304-3959},
  doi       = {10.1016/j.pain.2012.04.030},
  pages     = {1680 -- 1686},
  year      = {2012},
  abstract  = {Individual differences in interoceptive sensitivity are associated with differences in reported intensity of emotional experience, vulnerability to anxiety and mood disorder and capacity for emotional self-regulation. Enhanced sensitivity to autonomic state is often accompanied by increased autonomic reactivity. Here we tested the hypothesis that healthy people classified as more interoceptively sensitive, by their performance of a heartbeat monitoring task, will demonstrate enhanced perception of pain. We further explored whether this effect is associated with a greater physiological reactivity to the pain stimuli. Using an algometer, cutaneous pressure pain was applied to the thenar eminence in 60 healthy participants. Heart rate variability and respiratory activity were recorded concurrently. We observed significant relationships between heightened interoceptive sensitivity and both enhanced sensitivity and decreased tolerance to pain. These effects were accompanied by a more pronounced parasympathetic decrease and a change in sympathovagal balance during pain assessment in the high, compared to the low, interoceptively sensitive group. Our study provides novel evidence that interoceptive sensitivity is associated with the experience and tolerability of pain in conjunction with reactive changes in autonomic balance.},
  language  = {en}
}