Skip to main content

Main menu

  • HOME
  • CONTENT
    • Early Release
    • Featured
    • Current Issue
    • Issue Archive
    • Collections
    • Podcast
  • ALERTS
  • FOR AUTHORS
    • Information for Authors
    • Fees
    • Journal Clubs
    • eLetters
    • Submit
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • ABOUT
    • Overview
    • Advertise
    • For the Media
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Feedback
  • SUBSCRIBE

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Neuroscience
  • Log in
  • My Cart
Journal of Neuroscience

Advanced Search

Submit a Manuscript
  • HOME
  • CONTENT
    • Early Release
    • Featured
    • Current Issue
    • Issue Archive
    • Collections
    • Podcast
  • ALERTS
  • FOR AUTHORS
    • Information for Authors
    • Fees
    • Journal Clubs
    • eLetters
    • Submit
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • ABOUT
    • Overview
    • Advertise
    • For the Media
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Feedback
  • SUBSCRIBE
PreviousNext
Featured ArticleResearch Articles, Behavioral/Cognitive

Respiration, Heartbeat, and Conscious Tactile Perception

Martin Grund, Esra Al, Marc Pabst, Alice Dabbagh, Tilman Stephani, Till Nierhaus, Michael Gaebler and Arno Villringer
Journal of Neuroscience 26 January 2022, 42 (4) 643-656; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0592-21.2021
Martin Grund
1Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Martin Grund
Esra Al
1Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
2MindBrainBody Institute, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin 10099, Germany
6DFG Research Training Group 2386 Extrospection, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin 10099, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Marc Pabst
1Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Alice Dabbagh
1Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
3Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Pain Perception Group, Leipzig 04103, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Tilman Stephani
1Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
4International Max Planck Research School NeuroCom, Leipzig 04103, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Tilman Stephani
Till Nierhaus
1Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
5Neurocomputation and Neuroimaging Unit, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 14195, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Till Nierhaus
Michael Gaebler
1Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
2MindBrainBody Institute, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin 10099, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Michael Gaebler
Arno Villringer
1Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig 04103, Germany
2MindBrainBody Institute, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin 10099, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that timing of sensory stimulation during the cardiac cycle interacts with perception. Given the natural coupling of respiration and cardiac activity, we investigated here their joint effects on tactile perception. Forty-one healthy female and male human participants reported conscious perception of finger near-threshold electrical pulses (33% null trials) and decision confidence while electrocardiography, respiratory activity, and finger photoplethysmography were recorded. Participants adapted their respiratory cycle to expected stimulus onsets to preferentially occur during late inspiration/early expiration. This closely matched heart rate variation (sinus arrhythmia) across the respiratory cycle such that most frequent stimulation onsets occurred during the period of highest heart rate probably indicating highest alertness and cortical excitability. Tactile detection rate was highest during the first quadrant after expiration onset. Interindividually, stronger respiratory phase-locking to the task was associated with higher detection rates. Regarding the cardiac cycle, we confirmed previous findings that tactile detection rate was higher during diastole than systole and newly specified its minimum at 250–300 ms after the R-peak corresponding to the pulse wave arrival in the finger. Expectation of stimulation induced a transient heart deceleration which was more pronounced for unconfident decision ratings. Interindividually, stronger poststimulus modulations of heart rate were linked to higher detection rates. In summary, we demonstrate how tuning to the respiratory cycle and integration of respiratory-cardiac signals are used to optimize performance of a tactile detection task.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Mechanistic studies on perception and cognition tend to focus on the brain neglecting contributions of the body. Here, we investigated how respiration and heartbeat influence tactile perception: respiration phase-locking to expected stimulus onsets corresponds to highest heart rate (and presumably alertness/cortical excitability) and correlates with detection performance. Tactile detection varies across the heart cycle with a minimum when the pulse reaches the finger and a maximum in diastole. Taken together with our previous finding of unchanged early event-related potentials across the cardiac cycle, we conclude that these effects are not a peripheral physiological artifact but a result of cognitive processes that model our body's internal state, make predictions to guide behavior, and might also tune respiration to serve the task.

  • cardiac cycle
  • electrocardiogram
  • interoception
  • photoplethysmography
  • respiration
  • tactile perception

SfN exclusive license.

View Full Text

Member Log In

Log in using your username and password

Enter your Journal of Neuroscience username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
Forgot your user name or password?

Purchase access

You may purchase access to this article. This will require you to create an account if you don't already have one.
Back to top

In this issue

The Journal of Neuroscience: 42 (4)
Journal of Neuroscience
Vol. 42, Issue 4
26 Jan 2022
  • Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • About the Cover
  • Index by author
  • Ed Board (PDF)
Email

Thank you for sharing this Journal of Neuroscience article.

NOTE: We request your email address only to inform the recipient that it was you who recommended this article, and that it is not junk mail. We do not retain these email addresses.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Respiration, Heartbeat, and Conscious Tactile Perception
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from Journal of Neuroscience
(Your Name) thought you would be interested in this article in Journal of Neuroscience.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Print
View Full Page PDF
Citation Tools
Respiration, Heartbeat, and Conscious Tactile Perception
Martin Grund, Esra Al, Marc Pabst, Alice Dabbagh, Tilman Stephani, Till Nierhaus, Michael Gaebler, Arno Villringer
Journal of Neuroscience 26 January 2022, 42 (4) 643-656; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0592-21.2021

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Respond to this article
Request Permissions
Share
Respiration, Heartbeat, and Conscious Tactile Perception
Martin Grund, Esra Al, Marc Pabst, Alice Dabbagh, Tilman Stephani, Till Nierhaus, Michael Gaebler, Arno Villringer
Journal of Neuroscience 26 January 2022, 42 (4) 643-656; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0592-21.2021
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introduction
    • Materials and Methods
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF

Keywords

  • cardiac cycle
  • electrocardiogram
  • interoception
  • photoplethysmography
  • respiration
  • tactile perception

Responses to this article

Respond to this article

Jump to comment:

No eLetters have been published for this article.

Related Articles

Cited By...

More in this TOC Section

Research Articles

  • Vigilance and behavioral state-dependent modulation of cortical neuronal activity throughout the sleep/wake cycle
  • Brain functional connectivity mapping of behavioral flexibility in rhesus monkeys
  • Accumulation System: Distributed Neural Substrates of Perceptual Decision Making Revealed by fMRI Deconvolution
Show more Research Articles

Behavioral/Cognitive

  • Brain functional connectivity mapping of behavioral flexibility in rhesus monkeys
  • Accumulation System: Distributed Neural Substrates of Perceptual Decision Making Revealed by fMRI Deconvolution
  • Recruitment of control and representational components of the semantic system during successful and unsuccessful access to complex factual knowledge
Show more Behavioral/Cognitive
  • Home
  • Alerts
  • Visit Society for Neuroscience on Facebook
  • Follow Society for Neuroscience on Twitter
  • Follow Society for Neuroscience on LinkedIn
  • Visit Society for Neuroscience on Youtube
  • Follow our RSS feeds

Content

  • Early Release
  • Current Issue
  • Issue Archive
  • Collections

Information

  • For Authors
  • For Advertisers
  • For the Media
  • For Subscribers

About

  • About the Journal
  • Editorial Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
(JNeurosci logo)
(SfN logo)

Copyright © 2022 by the Society for Neuroscience.
JNeurosci Online ISSN: 1529-2401

The ideas and opinions expressed in JNeurosci do not necessarily reflect those of SfN or the JNeurosci Editorial Board. Publication of an advertisement or other product mention in JNeurosci should not be construed as an endorsement of the manufacturer’s claims. SfN does not assume any responsibility for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from or related to any use of any material contained in JNeurosci.