Högskolan i Skövde

Interoception forms a bridge between the body and the brain. Defined as the conscious and unconscious sensing of one’s internal bodily processes, this intricate brain-body interaction allows respiration to influence consciousness and cognition. Several practical aspects require consideration when investigating this link from the perspective of interoception. For example, combining breath-based interventions with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or electroencephalography (EEG) can induce imaging-specific noise requiring precautions during pre-processing. I conducted a systematic review to identify essential steps for planning a respiratory interoceptive experiment and learn how to handle respiration-specific noise. In this systematic review, I followed the PRISMA guidelines to extract methodological approaches for overcoming these challenges in interoceptive research. Within twelve included studies, I assessed various combinations of interoceptive tasks with respiratory recordings, neuroimaging and the employed computational methods. The reviewed literature revealed distinct procedures for restrictive vs non-restrictive breathing tasks and fMRI vs EEG. The results demonstrated that the extracted methods need addressing in a task-dependent and neuroimaging-dependent context. To allow a more accessible interpretation of the search results, I compiled comprehensive introductory guidelines for researchers new to the multimodal investigation of respiratory interoception.