EP Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience Seminar: Brain-heart interactions in emotion and memory
Dr Sarah Garfinkel (University of Sussex)
Tuesday, 21 November 2017, 1pm to 2pm
Schlich Lecture Theatre, Plant Sciences, S. Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3RB
Hosted by Dr Matthew Apps
There is increasing recognition that cognitive and emotional processes are shaped by the dynamic integration of brain and body. Embodied and interoceptive mechanisms are proposed to underpin conscious self-representation and emotional experience. A major channel of interoceptive information comes from the heart, where phasic signals are conveyed to the brain to indicate how fast and strong the heart is beating. This talk will detail how cardiac afferent signals can interact with neuronal mechanisms to alter emotion and memory processing. Moreover, this interoceptive channel is disrupted in distinct ways in first episode psychosis, schizophrenia, autism and anxiety. This talk will provide empirical examples and suggest how specific interoceptive disturbances may contribute to our understanding of distinct symptoms in these clinical conditions, including dissociation and impaired emotion processing. The discrete cardiac effects on emotion and cognition have broad relevance to understating mechanistic disturbance in clinical neuroscience.