Autonomic challenge uncovers hidden link between diastolic blood pressure and mental imagery vividness

Mental imagery vividness is linked to cardiovascular physiology. Elevated diastolic blood pressure during an autonomic challenge predicted reduced vividness of mental images, especially for disgust and neutral scenes. Acute autonomic changes from a tilt table did not alter imagery vividness overall. The findings support the idea that mental imagery emerges from interactions between neural and bodily systems, and suggest cardiovascular function as a potential contributor to altered imagery experiences.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Mental imagery is viewed as a fundamental component of human cognition, supporting memory, emotional processing, future simulation, and conscious experience. Although mental imagery vividness has traditionally been attributed to differences in sensory processing, emerging evidence suggests that internally generated images are also shaped by ongoing bodily and interoceptive signals. Here, we investigated whether cardiovascular physiology contributes to individual differences in mental imagery vividness using a virtual reality paradigm in which participants encoded and reconstructed emotional and neutral scenes during a tilt-table-induced autonomic challenge. Acute autonomic changes induced by a tilt table did not alter imagery vividness. However, elevated diastolic blood pressure during the tilt-up condition predicted reduced mental imagery vividness, with the strongest effects observed for disgust and neutral imagery. Our findings provide direct evidence that the vividness of the mind eye is linked to cardiovascular physiology and support interoceptive accounts of consciousness in which mental imagery emerges from dynamic interactions between neural and bodily systems. More broadly, these results identify cardiovascular function as a potential physiological contributor to altered imagery experiences, including those observed in aphantasia and related clinical conditions.