Cited by 35Multisensory perception and integrationPsychosomatic Disorders and Their TreatmentsHeart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control

Rhesus monkeys have an interoceptive sense of their beating hearts

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Charbonneau, Joey A., Maister, Lara, Tsakiris, Manos, Bliss-Moreau, Eliza·2022·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Abstract

The sensation of internal bodily signals, such as when your stomach is contracting or your heart is beating, plays a critical role in broad biological and psychological functions ranging from homeostasis to emotional experience and self-awareness. The evolutionary origins of this capacity and, thus, the extent to which it is present in nonhuman animals remain unclear. Here, we show that rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) spend significantly more time viewing stimuli presented asynchronously, as compared to synchronously, with their heartbeats. This is consistent with evidence previously shown in human infants using a nearly identical experimental paradigm, suggesting that rhesus monkeys have a human-like capacity to integrate interoceptive signals from the heart with exteroceptive audiovisual information. As no prior work has demonstrated behavioral evidence of innate cardiac interoceptive ability in nonhuman animals, these results have important implications for our understanding of the evolution of this ability and for establishing rhesus monkeys as an animal model for human interoceptive function and dysfunction. We anticipate that this work may also provide an important model for future psychiatric research, as disordered interoceptive processing is implicated in a wide variety of psychiatric conditions.

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  • Infants and monkeys spend less time looking at a stimulus moving in synchrony with their heartbeats.

    “both infants 41 and monkeys 42 spend less time looking at a stimulus moving in synchrony with their heartbeats.”

    From Interoceptive rhythms in the brain (2023) · cites this paper as [42]

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [11]E. S. Katkin, S. D. Reed, C. Deroo, A methodological analysis of 3 techniques for the assessment of individual-differences in heartbeat detection. Psychophysiology 20, 452 (1983).
  2. [75]J. A. Charbonneau, E. Bliss-Moreau, Rhesus monkeys have an interoceptive sense of their beating hearts. Open Science Framework. https://osf.io/3vmfs/. Deposited 9 September 2021. PMC9169786 35412910

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Authors
Charbonneau, J. A., Maister, L., Tsakiris, M., & Bliss-Moreau, E.
Affiliations
  • University of California, Davis (US)
  • Bangor University (GB)
  • Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, United Kingdom
  • Neuroscience and Behavior Unit, California National Primate Research Center, Davis, CA 95616
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Published
2022-04-11
Volume
119
Issue
16
Pages
e2119868119-e2119868119
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
OpenAlex
W4223499323
Cited by
35
References
73
Citations by year
2026: 1 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 4
FWCI
7.82
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Bangor University Research Portal (Bangor University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
  • UC | University of California, Davis (Chancellor''''s Fellowship)
  • National Institutes of Health Office of the Director (P51OD011107)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control
Keywords
interoception, cardiac interoception, rhesus monkeys, heartbeat, audio-video synchronization, mental illness, self-awareness
MeSH terms
Animals, Awareness, Heart, Heart Rate, Macaca mulatta, Models, Animal, Interoception

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