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Breathing plays a crucial role in shaping perceptual and cognitive processes by regulating the strength and synchronisation of neural oscillations. Numerous studies have demonstrated that respiratory rhythms govern a wide range of behavioural effects across cognitive, affective, and perceptual domains. Additionally, respiratory-modulated brain oscillations have been observed in various mammalian models and across diverse frequency spectra. However, a comprehensive framework to elucidate these disparate phenomena remains elusive. In this review, we synthesise existing findings to propose a neural gradient of respiratory-modulated brain oscillations and examine recent computational models of neural oscillations to map this gradient onto a hierarchical cascade of precision-weighted prediction errors. By deciphering the computational mechanisms underlying respiratory control of these processes, we can potentially uncover new pathways for understanding the link between respiratory-brain coupling and psychiatric disorders.

A growing body of evidence highlights the intricate linkage of exteroceptive perception to the rhythmic activity of the visceral body. In parallel, interoceptive inference theories of affective perception and self-consciousness are on the rise in cognitive science. However, thus far no formal theory has emerged to integrate these twin domains; instead, most extant work is conceptual in nature. Here, we introduce a formal model of cardiac active inference, which explains how ascending cardiac signals entrain exteroceptive sensory perception and uncertainty. Through simulated psychophysics, we reproduce the defensive startle reflex and commonly reported effects linking the cardiac cycle to affective behaviour. We further show that simulated 'interoceptive lesions' blunt affective expectations, induce psychosomatic hallucinations, and exacerbate biases in perceptual uncertainty. Through synthetic heart-rate variability analyses, we illustrate how the balance of arousal-priors and visceral prediction errors produces idiosyncratic patterns of physiological reactivity. Our model thus offers a roadmap for computationally phenotyping disordered brain-body interaction.

Background Interoception describes the inner sense of the body, and relates to sensing, interpretation and regulation of internal signals. Investigation of interoception and subject beliefs has recently been tested with a new approach of cardiac interoception by Legrand et al. Aberrant interoceptive abilities are suggested to play a role in development and maintenance of functional somatic disorders (FSD). Studies on adults with specific types of FSD such as functional neurological disorder and fibromyalgia syndrome have found that these patients have lower or impaired cardiac interoception compared to healthy controls. In contrast, a study on patients with somatoform disorders found no evidence for differences in cardiac interoception for these patients compared to healthy controls. However, the research within functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGID) is sparse, and our knowledge about the role of interoception in children and adolescents with this subtype of FSD even more limited. Aim The primary aim of this project is to investigate if interoception is altered in children and adolescents with FGID compared to healthy controls, using a psychophysical measure of cardiac interoception, i.e. the heart rate discrimination (HRD) task.

Our project modelling domain-general metacognition in a preregistered report.

A pre-registered investigation of how self-isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic influences mood, bodily self-experience, and well-being.

A psycho-physiological investigation of the role of stimulus arousal on metacognition for memory.