Body Representation, Obesity
Conditions
Brief summary
Successfully perceiving the flow of interoceptive cues and integrating them with exteroceptive information are fundamental aspects of countering the body's inherent instability and guaranteeing homeostatic regulation. This process deeply affects cognitive/emotional functioning and general health. Recently, it has been suggested that an important signature underpinning obesity might be an interoceptive dysfunction in perceiving internal body signals and/or integrating them with information from the external environment. There is evidence that interoceptive deficits correlate with Body Mass Index (BMI), but it is still largely unclear how different measures and facets of interoception are related to high BMI and eating behaviour. Within this framework, it is mandatory to understand the role of interoception in obesity at perceptual, cognitive, and emotional levels. One open issue regards the relationships between interoceptive signals and the reactivity to external food cues.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALThe crossmodal dual-task
Two main sensory tasks performed together: 1\. the visual task, in which participants are requested to monitor visual stimuli presented on a computer screen and to detect the deviant target as soon as possible. The target changes across blocks: in half of the trials, participants will have to respond to food stimuli presented together with irrelevant non-food stimuli (food target condition); in the other half conditions, participants will have to respond to non-food stimuli presented together with irrelevant food stimuli (non-food target condition). For each participant, we will collect the Reaction Time in milliseconds only for the valid responses, and the level of Accuracy in percentage. 2\) The interoceptive task, in which participants are requested to monitor their heartbeat presented through headphones and registered through pulse oximetry. Participants will judge the level of asynchrony between their heartbeat and the auditory cue.
Sponsors
Istituto Auxologico Italiano
Study design
Observational model
CASE_CONTROL
Time perspective
CROSS_SECTIONAL
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
FEMALE
Age
18 Years to 55 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Right-handed individuals diagnosed with obesity * In rehabilitative treatment at the Istituto Auxologico
Exclusion criteria
* Concurrent neurological, neurodevelopmental (e.g., autism), motor, somatosensory and/or psychiatric disorders
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Visual detection velocity | At the moment of the experiment | Reaction Time in milliseconds only for the valid responses in the visual task |
| Interoceptive judgement | At the moment of the experiment | Individual's judgement from 0 (no synchronicity) to 100 (maximum synchronicity) between between the auditory stimulus and own heartbeat in the heartbeat detection task |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Visual detection accuracy | At the moment of the experiment | Percentage of the correct answers in the No-Go trials in the visual task. |
Countries
Italy
Contacts
Primary ContactFederica Scarpina, PhD
Outcome results
None listed