Using bodily postures in the treatment of anorexia nervosa: Effects of power posing on interoception and affective states

The body interior in anorexia nervosa: from interoception to conceptual representation of body interior

Background

Body image disorders are well documented in anorexia nervosa (AN); however, knowledge of interoceptive awareness (IA) in this population remains poor. This descriptive study investigated whether and how the representation of the interior of the body may have an impact on IA.

Methods

The representations and knowledge of the body interior were evaluated with a drawing task in 34 women with AN and 34 healthy controls (HCs). A lexicometric analysis was performed on the vocabulary used to describe the drawn body parts in a structured interview. It was assumed that the conceptual representation of the body interior could be affected by or influence IA. Thus, the relationship between IA, measured with the heartbeat task and the ischemia-induction test, and the drawings was explored. Other scales, such as those of body shape, awareness or satisfaction, were used to assess affective representations of the body.

Results

The drawing, lexicometric and IA results were similar in the two groups. No correlations were found among IA, body representation scores and representation level of body interior. Only the representation of bones by the AN group was significantly different.

Discussion

Increased visual attention to the skeleton or greater awareness of bone health could explain the stronger representation of bones in the AN group. The psychophysical therapy received by some AN participants (73%) did not seem to have influenced IA. Our results do not support a relationship between IA and the representation of the body interior.Clinical trial registration:https://clinicaltrials.gov/, identifier NCT03988218.

Mood induction through imitation of full-body movements with different affective intentions

Theories of human emotion, including some emotion embodiment theories, suggest that our moods and affective states are reflected in the movements of our bodies. We used the reverse process for mood regulation; modulate body movements to regulate mood. Dancing is a type of full-body movement characterized by affective expressivity and, hence, offers the possibility to express different affective states through the same movement sequences. We tested whether the repeated imitation of a dancer performing two simple full-body dance movement sequences with different affective expressivity (happy or sad) could change mood states. Computer-based systems, using avatars as dance models to imitate, offer a series of advantages such as independence from physical contact and location. Therefore, we compared mood induction effects in two conditions: participants were asked to imitate dance movements from one of the two avatars showing: (a) videos of a human dancer model or (b) videos of a robot dancer model. The mood induction was successful for both happy and sad imitations, regardless of condition (human vs. robot avatar dance model). Moreover, the magnitude of happy mood induction and how much participants liked the task predicted work-related motivation after the mood induction. We conclude that mood regulation through dance movements is possible and beneficial in the work context.

[To experience one's physicality through the "bizarre" experience of touching oneself]

The touch of oneself is essential in the construction of a conscious self. It contributes to the feeling of ownership of the body. Feeling touched and touching reveals the subject in a being-self inscribed in its environment. This sensory experience can be disturbing for the subject. A study conducted with adolescent girls with obesity has shown that this haptic experience, during a postural session, can generate a feeling of strangeness. This singular discovery of oneself reveals the opening towards new exploratory fields of the body self-consciousness, during our care.

Qigong Training Positively Impacts Both Posture and Mood in Breast Cancer Survivors With Persistent Post-surgical Pain: Support for an Embodied Cognition Paradigm

Theories of embodied cognition hypothesize interdependencies between psychological well-being and physical posture. The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility of objectively measuring posture, and to explore the relationship between posture and affect and other patient centered outcomes in breast cancer survivors (BCS) with persistent postsurgical pain (PPSP) over a 12-week course of therapeutic Qigong mind-body training. Twenty-one BCS with PPSP attended group Qigong training. Clinical outcomes were pain, fatigue, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, stress and exercise self-efficacy. Posture outcomes were vertical spine and vertical head angles in the sagittal plane, measured with a 3D motion capture system in three conditions: eyes open (EO), eyes open relaxed (EOR) and eyes closed (EC). Assessments were made before and after the Qigong training. The association between categorical variables (angle and mood) was measured by Cramer's V. In the EO condition, most participants who improved in fatigue and anxiety scales also had better vertical head values. For the EOR condition, a moderate correlation was observed between changes in vertical head angle and changes in fatigue scale. In the EC condition, most of the participants who improved in measures of fatigue also improved vertical head angle. Additionally, pain severity decreased while vertical spine angle improved. These preliminary findings support that emotion and other patient centered outcomes should be considered within an embodied framework, and that Qigong may be a promising intervention for addressing biopsychosocially complex interventions such as PPSP in BCSs.

Short-Term Fasting and Ingestion of Caloric Drinks Affect Heartbeat-Evoked Potentials and Autonomic Nervous System Activity in Males

Central nervous systems receive and process information from the internal and external environment to maintain homeostasis. This includes interoceptive awareness of the organism’s nutritional state. Whenever food supply is required, feelings of hunger initiate the search for and the consumption of appropriate amounts of nutrients. How this is physiologically regulated in humans has been subjected to research into interoceptive awareness of body states during fasting and food consumption. However, there is no research on the distinct effects of carbohydrate or protein intake on interoception. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the impact of fasting and consumption of standardized carbohydrate and protein shakes on interoception in a repeated-measures cross-over design in a sample of 37 healthy, normal weight males. As a physiological correlate of interoception, we measured heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEPs), which are suggested to reflect the cortical representation of cardiac signals, during eight-minutes resting state EEG-recordings. After a 16-hour fasting period, the HEP amplitudes were lower over right central and parietal electrodes and increased after ingestion of the nutritional shake. Exploratory analyses indicated that the difference between fasting and satiety was more prominent at carbohydrate compared protein testing days. Correlation analyses with heart rate variability (HRV) suggested that high cardiac sympathetic activity is related to lower HEP amplitudes. Furthermore, cardiac sympathetic activity and stress indices decreased from before to after the intervention, whereas HRV increased. Together, this study shows for the first time that fasting and the intake of a nutritional shake affects cardiac measures of autonomic nervous system functioning and the neural correlates of cardiac interoception. These findings could be relevant for diets and psychosomatic disorders, including eating disorders.