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The following is a summary of “Functional movement disorder is associated with abnormal interoceptive brain activity: a task-based functional MRI study,” published in the February 2025 issue of Frontiers in Psychiatry by Spagnolo et al.
Aberrant interoception may contribute to a functional neurological disorder, but findings remain inconsistent, so this study examined its neural correlates using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Researchers conducted a retrospective study using fMRI to examine neural correlates of interoceptive attention in functional movement disorder (FMD), analyzing brain activity linked to bodily awareness and focus.
They used voxelwise analyses to compare blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) responses between 13 adults with hyperkinetic FMD and 13 healthy controls (HCs) during a task requiring attention to bodily sensations and an exteroceptive stimulus. They also analyzed between-group differences in self-reported interoception and its relationship with neural activity.
The results showed that interoceptive conditions (heartbeat, stomach, and body) activated the precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), caudate nucleus (CN) bilaterally, and right anterior insula (aINS) (P <0.05, corrected). Group differences were driven by disease-related interoception, with FMD showing broader activation than gastric interoception, while no differences appeared in cardiac interoception. Differences in interoceptive focus (body vs. heartbeat and stomach) between FMD and HCs were found in PCC, CN, angular gyrus, thalamus, and mid-insula (P <0.05, corrected).
Investigators found that FMD was associated with abnormal interoceptive processing in brain regions involved in body state monitoring, attentional focus, and homeostatic inference.
Source: frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1473913/full
