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Some people diagnosed with “schizophrenia” showed a fundamental alteration of the sense of self. From a psychodynamic perspective, it has been hypothesized that patients diagnosed as schizo...

The aim of this study is to investigate the bodily-self in Restrictive Anorexia, focusing on two basic aspects related to the bodily self: autonomic strategies in social behavior, in which others' social desirability features, and social cues (e.g., gaze) are modulated, and interoception (i.e., the sensitivity to stimuli originating inside the body). Furthermore, since previous studies carried out on healthy individuals found that interoception seems to contribute to the autonomic regulation of social behavior, as measured by Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA), we aimed to explore this link in anorexia patients, whose ability to perceive their bodily signal seems to be impaired. To this purpose, we compared a group of anorexia patients (ANg; restrictive type) with a group of Healthy Controls (HCg) for RSA responses during both a resting state and a social proxemics task, for their explicit judgments of comfort in social distances during a behavioral proxemics task, and for their Interoceptive Accuracy (IA). The results showed that ANg displayed significantly lower social disposition and a flattened autonomic reactivity during the proxemics task, irrespective of the presence of others' socially desirable features or social cues. Moreover, unlike HCg, the autonomic arousal of ANg did not guide behavioral judgments of social distances. Finally, IA was strictly related to social disposition in both groups, but with opposite trends in ANg. We conclude that autonomic imbalance and its altered relationship with interoception might have a crucial role in anorexia disturbances.

The present study focuses on the multifaceted concept of self-disturbance in schizophrenia, adding knowledge about a not yet investigated aspect, which is the interoceptive accuracy. Starting from the assumption that interoceptive accuracy requires an intact sense of self, which otherwise was proved to be altered in schizophrenia, the aim of the present study was to explore interoceptive accuracy in a group of schizophrenia patients, compared to healthy controls. Furthermore, the possible association between interoceptive accuracy and patients’ positive and negative symptomatology was assessed. To pursue these goals, a group of 23 schizophrenia patients and a group of 23 healthy controls performed a heartbeat perception task. Patients’ symptomatology was assessed by means of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Results demonstrated significantly lower interoceptive accuracy in schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls. This difference was not accounted for participants’ age, BMI, anxiety levels and heart rate. Furthermore, patients’ illness severity, attention and pharmacological treatment did not influence their interoceptive accuracy levels. Interestingly, a strong positive relation between interoceptive accuracy and positive symptoms severity, especially Grandiosity, was found. The present results demonstrate for the first time that interoceptive accuracy is altered in schizophrenia. Furthermore, they prove a specific association between interoceptive accuracy and positive symptomatology, suggesting that the symptom Grandiosity might be protective against an altered basic sense of self in patients characterized by higher sensibility to their inner bodily sensations.

Parkville, Australia; Mental Health Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia; Edith Cowan University, Perth, New York, Australia; CogState Ltd, Melbourne, Australia; University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia; Austin Hospital, Melbourne, Australia; National Ageing Research Institute Inc. (NARI), Melbourne, Australia; Austin Health, Melbourne, Australia; Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, VIC, Australia; St Georges Hospital, Kew, Australia; Mental Health Research Institute, Perth, Australia. Contact e-mail: c.restrepo@student.unimelb.edu.au

Introduction The awareness of one's body constitutes a basic experience of Self which modulates the individual engagement in social interactions. Indeed, Interoception Sensitivity (IS), an index of individual ability to represent one’s own internal body states, is implicated in the autonomic regulation in interpersonal context. Schizophrenia deficits in Self-experience and awareness, which frequently entail anomalies in self-other relationship, capture the ever-growing attention of researchers. Nevertheless, IS and autonomic regulation of schizophrenic patients in social context are completely new and not yet investigated aspects of Schizophrenia. Aim To investigate whether Schizophrenia could be associated with lower IS and with a dysfunctional autonomic regulation during social interaction. Methods 24 chronic schizophrenia patients, and a matched group of healthy controls, performed a Social and a Non-social task while respiratory sinus arrhythmia (an index of autonomic regulation) was measured. In the Social task participants viewed an experimenter performing a caress-like movement at different distances from their hand. In the Non-social task a metal stick was moved at the same distances from the participants’ hand. As measure of IS, a cardiac Mental Tacking Task was performed. Results Comparing to controls, Schizophrenia patients presented lower IS, absence of relation between IS and autonomic regulation, and an anomalous autonomic regulation in social and non-social contexts. Conclusions Deficits in Self-experience, associated with Schizophrenia, could be extended to patients’ sensitivity to internal bodily signals. Moreover, the observed altered autonomic regulation will be part of interpersonal interaction deficit frequently associated to Schizophrenia.

The involvement of the sensorimotor system in language understanding has been widely demonstrated. However, the role of context in these studies has only recently started to be addressed. Though words are bearers of a semantic potential, meaning is the product of a pragmatic process. It needs to be situated in a context to be disambiguated. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that embodied simulation occurring during linguistic processing is contextually modulated to the extent that the same sentence, depending on the context of utterance, leads to the activation of different effector-specific brain motor areas. In order to test this hypothesis, we asked subjects to give a motor response with the hand or the foot to the presentation of ambiguous idioms containing action-related words when these are preceded by context sentences. The results directly support our hypothesis only in relation to the comprehension of hand-related action sentences.