Clinical trial

SENSing Inner BodiLy State: Understanding the Role of Interoception in obEsity

Recruiting now · Not applicable · 1 countries · Registry ID NCT06855251

Recruiting nowNot applicableObservational

What this study is about

Successfully perceiving the flow of interoceptive cues and integrating them with exteroceptive information are fundamental aspects of countering the body's inherent instability and guaranteeing homeostatic regulation. This process deeply affects cognitive/emotional functioning and general health. Recently, it has been suggested that an important signature underpinning obesity might be an interoceptive dysfunction in perceiving internal body signals and/or integrating them with information from the external environment. There is evidence that interoceptive deficits correlate with Body Mass Index (BMI), but it is still largely unclear how different measures and facets of interoception are related to high BMI and eating behaviour. Within this framework, it is mandatory to understand the role of interoception in obesity at perceptual, cognitive, and emotional levels. One open issue regards the relationships between interoceptive signals and the reactivity to external food cues.

A promising-looking record is not the same as confirmed eligibility. The study team must review the full criteria and current recruitment status.

Basic eligibility

Age18 Years to 55 Years
SexFemale
Healthy volunteersAccepted
ConditionObesity, Body Representation

Full registry criteria

Inclusion Criteria: * Right-handed individuals diagnosed with obesity * In rehabilitative treatment at the Istituto Auxologico Exclusion Criteria: * Concurrent neurological, neurodevelopmental (e.g., autism), motor, somatosensory and/or psychiatric disorders

Treatments and study arms

The crossmodal dual-task

Behavioral

Two main sensory tasks performed together: 1\. the visual task, in which participants are requested to monitor visual stimuli presented on a computer screen and to detect the "deviant" target" as soon as possible. The target changes across blocks: in half of the trials, participants will have to respond to food stimuli presented together with irrelevant non-food stimuli (food target condition); in the other half conditions, participants will have to respond to non-food stimuli presented together with irrelevant food stimuli (non-food target condition). For each participant, we will collect the Reaction Time in milliseconds only for the valid responses, and the level of Accuracy in percentage. 2\) The interoceptive task, in which participants are requested to monitor their heartbeat presented through headphones and registered through pulse oximetry. Participants will judge the level of asynchrony between their heartbeat and the auditory cue.

Primary outcomes

Visual detection velocityAt the moment of the experiment

Reaction Time in milliseconds only for the valid responses in the visual task

Interoceptive judgementAt the moment of the experiment

Individual's judgement from 0 (no synchronicity) to 100 (maximum synchronicity) between between the auditory stimulus and own heartbeat in the heartbeat detection task

Study locations

1 locations were listed when this page was built. The first 40 are shown.

IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano - Ospedale San Giuseppe🇮🇹 Piancavallo, VCO, Italy
Federica Scarpina, PhDContact