In the Body’s Eye: The Computational Anatomy of Interoceptive Inference
bioRxiv Preprint Server April 10, 2019 Micah Allen, Andrew Levy, Thomas Parr et al. 100 citations preprint
A formal model of cardiac active inference explains how signals from the heart influence perception of the outside world and confidence in that perception. Simulated experiments reproduce the defensive startle reflex and the link between the cardiac cycle and fear perception. Simulated interoceptive lesions reduce fear expectations, cause psychosomatic hallucinations, and worsen metacognitive biases. Synthetic heart-rate variability analyses show how the balance of arousal-priors and visceral prediction errors creates distinct patterns of physiological reactivity. The model provides a way to computationally characterize disordered brain-body interaction.