Task-Dependent Heart-Brain Interactions Regulate Human Self-Awareness
Musi Xie1,2,3 · Hang Wu1,4 · Han Bao1,2,3 · Yihui Zhang5 · Yueyao Liu6 · Junrong Han1,4 · Xilin Zhang1,2,3 · Pengmin Qin1,2,3,7
1 Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
2 Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510335, China
3 School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
4 Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
5 Guangdong Police College, Guangzhou 510631, China
6 Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310000, China
7 Pazhou Lab, Guangzhou 510335, China
Abstract
Heart-brain interaction is the basis of self-awareness, a fundamental function to identify and distinguish us from others. However, how self-awareness is modulated by heart-brain interaction and whether this modulation is governed by task-induced internal states remains unclear. Using own-, celebrity-, and stranger-faces, human subjects’ internal states (self-related and non-self-related) were induced by two different tasks: Own-Face and Celebrity-Face Recognition, respectively. Results showed that heart-brain interactions, indexed by pre-stimulus heartbeat-evoked potential, not only predicted subsequent subjects’ self-recognition but also moderated the relationship between self-recognition and stimulus-driven sensory differences among external stimuli. Intriguingly, both this prediction and modulation were strongly task-dependent, showing in the Own-Face Recognition task but not in the Celebrity-Face Recognition task. Together, our results reveal for the first time adaptive heart-brain interactive self-awareness processing, placing a necessary constraint, namely, the task-induced internal state, on our understanding of how heart-brain interactions, or, more generally, body-brain interactions, regulate human self-awareness.
Keywords
Self-awareness; Heartbeat-evoked potential (HEP); Task-dependence; Heart-brain interaction
