Strongly held agoraphobic cognitions predict panic diagnosis and reveals a key interoceptive dimension in mental health. A machine learning study.

ADRIAN YORIS; ALVARO DELEGLISE

Viena

Conferencia; 2022 ESCAN Meeting in Vienna; 2022

European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

People develop and hold beliefs about broad and differentconceptions of the self: a sense of agency, self-esteem, and self-perceptionof embodiment, among many others. Interoceptive beliefs (Suksasilp andGarfinkel, 2022) are related to self-perception of bodily experience that when strongly held may facilitate vulnerability tointeroceptive distortions with implications for psychiatric disorders. Althoughstrongly held interoceptive beliefs are relevant to many mental healthproblems, such as anxiety disorders, their study has been neglected inmainstream interoceptive research, particularly in its Bayesian predictivecoding models. In this work, we analyzed the power of strongly heldinteroceptive beliefs in predicting the diagnosis of panic and social anxiety disorders. By employing a model-based feature selection strategy followed by supervised classifications with Random Forest classifiers we found that panic-related stronglyheld interoceptive beliefs,as measured by the self-report scale ACQ-physical concern,predicted the correct diagnosis in almost 90% of cases. In social anxietydisorder, the algorithm was equally successful, however, the beliefs thatbetter predicted the diagnosis were essentially social (fear of rejection,measured by the SIASscale) instead of physical. Overall, this study bears psychopathological modelsthat emphasize the role of strongly held beliefs as a specific psychologicalvulnerability for the development of mental disorders. On the other hand, itemphasizes the role of interoceptive cognitions of self-perception of embodimentin the development of psychopathology. Relevance:Bayesian interoceptive models propose that inputs within the body are predictedand perceived by a top-down brain perceptive mechanism that serves tomaintain internal allostasis. This translational study shows that strongly heldinteroceptive beliefs predicted psychiatric diagnosis in almost 90%.Consequently, it supports the role of interoceptive beliefs in high-orderinteroceptive dimensions and particularly in self-perception of embodiment. Italso calls for interoceptiveresearch to incorporate the notion of beliefs in current Bayesian predictivecoding models as it might explain part of the vulnerability to interoceptivedistortions in mental health.@font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-536870145 1107305727 0 0 415 0;}@font-face{font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-520082689 -1073697537 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";margin:0cm;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;mso-default-props:yes;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-bidi-font-family:Calibri;mso-font-kerning:0pt;mso-ligatures:none;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}