Interoception as a function of hypnotizability during rest and a heartbeat counting task.

The hypnotizability-related differences in morpho-functional characteristics of the insula could at least partially account for the differences in interoceptive accuracy (IA) observed between high and low hypnotizable individuals (highs, lows). Our aim was to investigate interoceptive processing in highs, lows, and medium hypnotizable individuals (mediums), who represent most of the population, during a 10-minute open eyes relaxation condition (Part 1) and three repetitions of consecutive 2-minute open eyes, closed eyes, and heartbeat counting conditions, followed by a 2-minute post-counting condition (Part 2). Electrocardiogram and electroencephalogram were recorded in 14 highs, 14 mediums, and 18 lows, classified according to the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale: Form A.

Hypnotizability-related risky experience and behavior.

Risk is the probability of an adverse event. The proneness to take a risk and the risk taking behavior differ among the general population. Hypnotizability is a stable psychophysiological trait expressing the individual proneness to modify perception, memory and behavior following specific suggestions also in the ordinary state of consciousness.

Is Hypnotic Induction Necessary to Experience Hypnosis and Responsible for Changes in Brain Activity?

The relevance of formal hypnotic induction to the experience of trance and its neural correlates is not clear, in that hypnotizability, beliefs and expectation of hypnosis may play a major role. The aim of the study was assessing the EEG brain activity of participants with high (highs) or low hypnotizability scores (lows), aware of their hypnotizability level and informed that the session will include simple relaxation, formal hypnotic induction and neutral hypnosis. A total of 16 highs and 15 lows (according to the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, form A) were enrolled.

Association of Hypnotizability, Interoception, and Emotion.

The present scoping review reports the reciprocal relations between hypnotizability, interoception, and emotion. Brain morpho-functional differences may account for the lower interoceptive accuracy, higher interoceptive sensitivity, and different emotional strategies observed in highly hypnotizable participants with respect to medium-to-low hypnotizables. Since interoception is relevant to both physical and mental health and hypnotizability can predict both interoceptive abilities and the efficacy of interoception-based mental training, this allows for the development of new forms of treatment and rehabilitation.

Morning naps architecture and mentation recall complexity.

Mentation reports were collected after spontaneous awakenings from morning naps in 18 healthy participants, and associations between sleep stages duration and complexity of recalled mentation were investigated. Participants were continuously recorded with polysomnography and allowed to sleep for a maximum of 2 hr. Mentation reports were classified according to both their complexity (1-6 scale) and their perceived timing of occurrence (Recent or Previous Mentation with respect to the final awakening).

Modulation of the heartbeat evoked cortical potential by hypnotizability and hypnosis.

Hypnotizability is a psychophysiological trait measured by scales and associated with several differences, including interoceptive accuracy and the morpho-functional characteristics of interoception-related brain regions. The aim of the study was to assess whether the amplitude of the heartbeat evoked cortical potential (HEP), a correlate of interoceptive accuracy, differs in participants with low (lows) and high (highs) hypnotizability scores (assessed by the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form A) before and after the induction of hypnosis. ECG and EEG were monitored in 16 highs and 15 lows during an experimental session, including open eyes baseline (B), closed eyes relaxation (R), hypnotic induction (IND), neutral hypnosis (NH), and post session baseline (Post).

The impact of physical activity on the quality of life of a sample of Italian people with physical disability.

Physical activity promotes psychophysical health; however, to date, only few studies have investigated the association between regular physical activity and the quality-of-life perception and satisfaction in disabled persons. Our aim was to compare the quality and satisfaction for life, self-efficacy, and personal wellbeing of two samples of Italian people with physical disability (amputation, spinal cord dysfunction, neurological disability): one group with people who practiced regular physical activity (active group, = 33) and the other group consisting of sedentary individuals (inactive group, = 26). We compared the mean scores of the groups in the World Health Organization Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQoL-BRIEF), the Personal Wellbeing Index, and the Satisfaction With Life and General Self-Efficacy scales.

ComEDA: A new tool for stress assessment based on electrodermal activity.

Non-specific sympathetic arousal responses to different stressful elicitations can be easily recognized from the analysis of physiological signals. However, neural patterns of sympathetic arousal during physical and mental fatigue are clearly not unitary. In the context of physiological monitoring through wearable and non-invasive devices, electrodermal activity (EDA) is the most effective and widely used marker of sympathetic activation.

Synchronization between music dynamics and heart rhythm is modulated by the musician's emotional involvement: A single case study.

In this study we evaluated heart rate variability (HRV) changes in a pianist, playing in a laboratory, to investigate whether HRV changes are guided by music temporal features or by technical difficulty and/or subjective factors (e.g., experienced effort).

Well-Being in Highly Hypnotizable Persons.

Both hypnotizability and well-being are relevant to health. This study aimed to investigate whether high hypnotizability was positively associated with well-being and whether the latter was related to the activity of the behavioral inhibition/approach system (BIS/BAS). ANOVA revealed significantly higher scores on the General Well-Being Index (PGWBI) in highly hypnotizable (highs, = 31) compared with low hypnotizable participants (lows, = 53), with medium hypnotizable participants (mediums, = 41) exhibiting intermediate values.

Heartbeat-Evoked Cortical Potential during Sleep and Interoceptive Sensitivity: A Matter of Hypnotizability.

Individuals with different hypnotizability display different interoceptive sensitivity/awareness (IS) and accuracy (IA), likely sustained by morphofunctional differences in interoception-related brain regions and, thus, possibly also observable during sleep. We investigated the heartbeat-evoked cortical potential amplitude (HEP) during sleep, its association with IS, and the role of hypnotizability in such association. We performed a retrospective analysis of polysomnographic recordings of 39 healthy volunteers.

Interoceptive Accuracy as a Function of Hypnotizability.

This study aimed to measure the interoceptive accuracy (IA) of individuals with high ), medium , and low hypnotizability through the heartbeat-counting task during 3 relaxation trials. Participants completed the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA), ECG and skin conductance (SC) were monitored, and the experienced difficulty in counting was reported. Results showed similar counting difficulty and number of actual heartbeats in highs, mediums, and lows.

An evolutionary approach to hypnotizability.

We propose here an evolutionary interpretation of the presence of highly hypnotizable persons (highs) among the general population. Current experimental evidence suggests the presence of stronger functional equivalence between imagery and perception, non-opioid cognitive control of pain, favorable cardiovascular asset, and greater interoceptive sensitivity in highs. We hypothesize that these characteristics were greatly relevant to our ancestors' survival, and that they may have facilitated the natural selection of individuals who are now named "highs" due to one of their side effects - the proneness to accept suggestions - as part of the reported physiological features.

Salivary Proteome Changes in Response to Acute Psychological Stress Due to an Oral Exam Simulation in University Students: Effect of an Olfactory Stimulus.

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays a crucial role both in acute and chronic psychological stress eliciting changes in many local and systemic physiological and biochemical processes. Salivary secretion is also regulated by ANS. In this study, we explored salivary proteome changes produced in thirty-eight University students by a test stress, which simulated an oral exam.

Linear and non linear measures of pupil size as a function of hypnotizability.

Higher arousal and cortical excitability have been observed in high hypnotizable individuals (highs) with respect to low hypnotizables (lows), which may be due to differences in the activation of ascending activating systems. The present study investigated the possible hypnotizability-related difference in the cortical noradrenergic tone sustained by the activity of the Locus Coeruleus which is strongly related to pupil size. This was measured during relaxation in three groups of participants-highs (N = 15), lows (N = 15) and medium hypnotizable individuals (mediums, N = 11)-in the time and frequency domains and through the Recurrence Quantification Analysis.

Parasympathetic-Sympathetic Causal Interactions Assessed by Time-Varying Multivariate Autoregressive Modeling of Electrodermal Activity and Heart-Rate-Variability.

Objective: Most of the bodily functions are regulated by multiple interactions between the parasympathetic (PNS) and sympathetic (SNS) nervous system. In this study, we propose a novel framework to quantify the causal flow of information between PNS and SNS through the analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) and electrodermal activity (EDA) signals.

Methods: Our method is based on a time-varying (TV) multivariate autoregressive model of EDA and HRV time-series and incorporates physiologically inspired assumptions by estimating the Directed Coherence in a specific frequency range.

Multisensory Integration Is Modulated by Hypnotizability.

This study investigated multisensory integration in 29 medium-to-high (mid-highs) and 24 low-to-medium (mid-lows) hypnotizable individuals, classified according to the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form A. Participants completed a simultaneity judgment (SJ) task, where an auditory and a visual stimulus were presented in close proximity to their body in a range of 11 stimulus onset asynchronies. Results show that mid-highs were prone to judge audiovisual stimuli as simultaneous over a wider range of time intervals between sensory stimuli, as expressed by a broader temporal binding window, when the visual stimulus precedes the auditory one.

Postural effects of interoceptive imagery as a function of hypnotizability.

The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of pleasant and unpleasant interoceptive imagery on postural control in participants with different hypnotizability, interoceptive sensibility and ability of imagery. Forty-one healthy individuals classified as high (highs), medium (mediums) and low hypnotizables (lows) according to the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, form A (SHSS, A) were characterized for Interoceptive Sensitivity (IS) through the Multisensory Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) and for organic mental imagery (ORG) through Betts' questionnaire. The experimental session included baseline closed eyes conditions preceding tasks of pleasant (P) and unpleasant imagery (U) and a neutral cognitive task (NT) while standing on a stabilometric platform.

Task-independent Electrophysiological Correlates of Motor Imagery Ability from Kinaesthetic and Visual Perspectives.

Motor imagery (MI) ability is highly subjective, as indicated by the individual scores of the MIQ-3 questionnaire, and poor imagers compensate for the difficulty in performing MI with larger cerebral activations, as demonstrated by MI studies involving hands/limbs. In order to identify general, task-independent MI ability correlates, 16 volunteers were stratified with MIQ-3. The scores in the kinaesthetic (K) and 1st-person visual (V) perspectives were associated with EEG patterns obtained during K-MI and V-MI of the same complex MIQ-3 movements during these MI tasks (Spearman's correlation, significance at <0.

Association of hypnotizability and deep sleep: any role for interoceptive sensibility?

The aim of the study was to investigate the possible association of hypnotizability and deep sleep (N3) duration, and whether the interoceptive sensibility influences this association. This was motivated by the proneness of highly hypnotizable individuals to easily change their psychophysiological state, i.e.

Nonlinear Analysis of Eye-Tracking Information for Motor Imagery Assessments.

This study investigates the assessment of motor imagery (MI) ability in humans. Commonly, MI ability is measured through two methodologies: a self-administered questionnaire (MIQ-3) and the mental chronometry (MC), which measures the temporal discrepancy between the actual and the imagined motor tasks. However, both measures rely on subjects' self-assessment and do not use physiological measures.

Does hypnotic assessment predict the functional equivalence between motor imagery and action?

Motor imagery is influenced by individual and contextual factors. We investigated whether the psychophysiological trait of hypnotisability modulates its subjective experience and cortical correlates similarly to what was previously shown for head postures mental images. EEG was acquired in 18 high (highs) and 15 low (lows) hypnotizable subjects (Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, A).