Altered neural signatures of interoception in multiple sclerosis

SALAMONE, PAULA; SINAY, BLADIMIRO; ABREVAYA, SOFÍA; GARCÍA-CORDERO, INDIRA; YORIS MAGNAGO, ADRIÁN EZEQUIEL; COUTO, BLAS; ESTEVES, SOL; MARTORELL, MIGUEL; PETRONI, AGUSTÍN; AGUSTIN IBAÑEZ; LUCAS SEDEÑO

HUMAN BRAIN MAPPING

WILEY-LISS, DIV JOHN WILEY & SONS INC

Lugar: New York; Año: 2018

1065-9471

Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients present several alterations related to sensing of bodily signals.However, no specific neurocognitive impairment has yet been proposed as a core deficitunderlying such symptoms. We aimed to determine whether MS patients present changes ininteroception ?i.e., the monitoring of autonomic bodily information?, a process that might berelated to various bodily dysfunctions. We performed two studies in 34 relapsing-remitting,early-stage MS patients and 46 controls matched for gender, age, and education. In Study 1, weevaluated the heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP), a cortical signature of interoception, via a 128-channel EEG system during a heartbeat detection task including an exteroceptive and aninteroceptive condition. Then, we obtained whole-brain MRI recordings. In Study 2, participantsunderwent fMRI recordings during two resting-state conditions: mind wandering andinteroception. In Study 1, controls exhibited greater HEP modulation during the interoceptivecondition than the exteroceptive one, but no systematic differences between conditions emergedin MS patients. Patients presented atrophy in the left insula, the posterior part of the right insula,and the right anterior cingulate cortex, with abnormal associations between neurophysiologicaland neuroanatomical patterns. In Study 2, controls showed higher functional connectivity anddegree for the interoceptive state compared to mind wandering; however, this pattern was absentin patients, who nonetheless presented greater connectivity and degree than controls duringmind wandering. MS patients were characterized by atypical multimodal brain signatures ofinteroception. This finding opens a new agenda to examine the role of inner-signal monitoringin the body symptomatology of MS.