The present study aims to investigate the relationship between interoceptive accuracy and loneliness in the elderly population. Because of the negative consequences of atypical (too low or too high) interoceptive accuracy and the negative consequences of loneliness, an investigation of how these two constructs are linked to and might interact with each other is of major relevance. By combining two large areas, the one of loneliness and the one of interoception, which are both of great psychological interest, we intent to close a gap within the current research literature. Results might give us new insights into the perception (interoeptive and exteroceptive) of lonely persons.
Loneliness is described as an unpleasant feeling of deficits in quantity or quality of social ties. Prior studies observed that lonely individuals displayed higher levels of alexithymia (emotional blindness). Furthermore, research in the field of interoception (the perception of the bodily state) discovered atypically low interoceptive abilities within highly alexithyimic individuals. Based on previous findings, we expected lonely individuals to show decreased levels of accurate interoceptive abilities together with reduced neural activity within the anterior insula, the somatosensory cortex (postcentral gyrus), the inferior frontal gyrus and the precentral gyrus. Brain areas previously associated with accurate interoceptive abilities. The data for the present fMRI study were collected within a sample of 28 participants older than 64 years. The extent to which a participant is capable of perceiving his/ her own bodily sensations (interoceptive accuracy) was measured via a heartbeat tracking task, during which the subject was required to perceive his/ her own heart rate and report the counted number of heartbeats. Additionally, several questionnaires, assessing loneliness, trait anxiety, depression and alexithymia, were administered and analysed.
Table of Contents
Introduction and Theoretical Background
Loneliness in the Elderly Population
Loneliness and Alexithymia
Interoceptive Accuracy
Interoceptive Accuracy and Alexithymia
Limitations of Prior Research
Aim of the study and hypothesis
Methods
Participants
Measures
Sociodemographic Information
Loneliness
Anxiety
Depression
Alexithymia
Interoceptive Accuracy
fMRI Data Acquisition
Study procedure
Data Analysis
Behavioral and Statistical analysis
fMRI analysis
Results
Behavioral results
Descriptive Statistics
Correlational Analysis
Analysis of Variance
Analysis of Frequency
fMRI results
Main effect of condition
Interaction loneliness x condition
Discussion
References
Appendix
List of Figures
List of Tables
Abstract
German Abstract
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