Search

The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown orders adopted to prevent the spread of the disease had a huge impact on a personal, social, and economic level for the world population. In Europe, Italy was one of the frontrunner countries dealing with an emergency that significantly affected people’s lives. Previous research on the psychological impact of the pandemic revealed an increase in anxiety, depression, and feelings of distress; however, these studies were conducted on non-representative samples of the population reached through social media channels, a method that is likely to lead to many forms of statistical and methodological bias. For the first time to our knowledge, we assessed the psychological impact of COVID-19 on 6700 Italian individuals, representative of the Italian population in terms of age, gender, and geographical areas revealing higher scores of depressive symptoms in females, younger adults, people reporting professional uncertainty and lower socio-economic status. A positive correlation was also found for individuals living alone, those who could not leave home for going to work, and people with a case of COVID-19 in the family, whereas the region of residence was not a significant predictor of depressive symptoms. These findings underline the importance of considering the psychological effects of COVID-19 and providing support to individuals seeking mental health care.

Interoception, the capacity to perceive internal bodily states, is thought to influence cognitive, affective and interpersonal functioning. It is frequently assessed using the heartbeat counting task, introduced recently in interoceptive research. In this task participants are requested to count their heartbeats without relying on external cues. Interoceptive Accuracy (i.e., IAcc) scores are then computed based on absolute comparisons between actual and reported heartbeats. In a large sample of participants (N = 572), we observed that, whereas IAcc scores are meant to be theoretically agnostic to error type (i.e., over- or underestimation of heartbeats), these scores massively (i.e., > 95%) reflect under-reports. Of concern too, the correlation between actual and reported heartbeats is low overall (r = .16), varies non-linearly across IAcc score quantiles, and suggests undistinguishable interoceptive capacities within the top 60% IAcc scorers. We also found that IAcc scores, which are conceptually independent from actual heart rates, are structurally bound to them. Finally, we show that IAcc scores vary across the time intervals used in the task. We encourage researchers using this score for studying cognitive and emotional processes to reconsider its meaning.

Interoception and exteroception for body signals are two different ways of perceiving the self: the first from within, the second from outside. We investigated the relationship between Interoceptive Accuracy (IAcc) and external perception of the body and we tested if seeing the body from an external perspective can affect IAcc. Fifty-two healthy female subjects performed a standard heartbeat perception task to assess the IAcc, before and after the Body Image Revealer (BIR), which is a body perception task designed to assess the different aspects of body-image. The performance of the lower IAcc group in the heartbeat perception task significantly improved after the exteroceptive task. These findings highlight the relations between interoceptive and exteroceptive body-representations, supporting the view that these two kinds of awareness are linked and interact with each other.

Our perceptual systems integrate multisensory information about objects that are close to our bodies, which allow us to respond quickly and appropriately to potential threats, as well as act upon and manipulate useful tools. Intriguingly, the representation of this area close to our body, known as the multisensory 'peripersonal space' (PPS), can expand or contract during social interactions. However, it is not yet known how different social interactions can alter the representation of PPS. In particular, shared sensory experiences, such as those elicited by bodily illusions such as the enfacement illusion, can induce feelings of ownership over the other's body which has also been shown to increase the remapping of the other's sensory experiences onto our own bodies. The current study investigated whether such shared sensory experiences between two people induced by the enfacement illusion could alter the way PPS was represented, and whether this alteration could be best described as an expansion of one's own PPS towards the other or a remapping of the other's PPS onto one's own. An audio-tactile integration task allowed us to measure the extent of the PPS before and after a shared sensory experience with a confederate. Our results showed a clear increase in audio-tactile integration in the space close to the confederate's body after the shared experience. Importantly, this increase did not extend across the space between participant and confederate, as would be expected if the participant's PPS had expanded. Thus, the pattern of results is more consistent with a partial remapping of the confederate's PPS onto the participant's own PPS. These results have important consequences for our understanding of interpersonal space during different kinds of social interactions. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction et but de l’etude Les fructanes de type inuline sont des fibres alimentaires qui conferent des effets benefiques a l’hote, notamment via la modification du microbiote intestinal. Les vegetaux sont la source majoritaire de fructanes et les etudes d’intervention ayant ete menees jusqu’a ce jour se sont focalisees sur les fructanes issus de la racine de chicoree. Dans le cadre du projet Food4Gut, finance par un programme d’excellence de la region Wallonne, nous etudions l’impact des legumes naturellement riches en fructanes sur la sante intestinale ainsi que sur le comportement alimentaire. Materiel et methodes Vingt-six sujets sains ont recu pendant deux semaines un regime a base de legumes riches en inuline (apport d’environ 15 g/j en fructanes). Trois journees tests ont ete organisees : une avant l’intervention, une apres l’intervention et 3 semaines apres retour a leur regime habituel. Les analyses suivantes ont ete realisees : composition du microbiote intestinal, symptomes gastro-intestinaux, fermentation microbienne, comportement alimentaire. Resultats et analyse statistique Le microbiote intestinal est modifie de maniere selective pendant l’intervention (augmentation du genre Bifidobacterium, diminution des Oxalobacteriacea et de certaines Clostridiales, valeurs de p Conclusion La consommation de legumes riches en fructanes s’inscrit dans une approche nutritionnelle saine et permet d’augmenter l’apport en fibres dans la population generale. Cette approche alimentaire est d’ailleurs actuellement evaluee chez des patients obeses, en vue de mettre en evidence le lien entre les changements du microbiote et une potentielle amelioration de l’etat metabolique des patients.