Table Of ContentVISCERAL
SENSORY
NEUROSCIENCE
This page intentionally left blank
VISCERAL
SENSORY
NEUROSCIENCE
Interoception
OLIVER G. CAMERON
Professor, Department of Psychiatry
The University of Michigan
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
2002
OXTORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Oxford New York
Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogota Buenos Aires Cape Town
Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul
Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi
Paris Sao Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, 10016
http://www.oup-usa.org
1-800-334-4249
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cameron, Oliver G.
Visceral sensory neuroscience : interoception / Oliver G. Cameron.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-513601-2
1. Senses and sensation. 2. Viscera—Innervation. I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Visceral Afferents-physiology.
2. Psychophysiology. WL 102 C182v 2002]
QP435 .C35 2002
612.8'8-dc21
2001037056
246897531
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
In Memoriam: Richard Quinn LaPiana
This page intentionally left blank
PREFACE
What is this book about? It is concerned with the effects that afferent
sensory impulses arising from the viscera, the organs and tissues
within the trunk of the body, have on the higher nervous system
processes and the behavior of the organism. This set of functions is
called intereception, that is, perception of the functions and physi-
ological activities of the interior of the body. The physiology of these
afferent processes is essential to interoception, but the definition of
interoception as used here is more than physiology and more than
biology. It is psychobiology.
Why write a book on such a topic at this time? There are two
reasons. First, interoception is an important phenomenon that is
closely related to other topics and themes of great current interest,
for example, the scientific study of emotion, and methods to study
it more rigorously and in greater detail are becoming more readily
available. Second, few up-to-date, in-depth reviews of this topic exist.
Is this book for you? It has been written for and is intended
Vll
viii PREFACE
primarily for a professional audience, including scientists and clini-
cians working in all the fields related to psychobiology—neurosci-
ence, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, neuropharmacology, behav-
ioral sciences, psychology, brain imaging, and related clinical fields
such as psychiatry, neurology, internal medicine (especially cardi-
ology and gastroenterology), and clinical psychology—and students
in each of these fields. Individuals in the relatively new field of neu-
rophilosophy should also find the material of relevance. In addition,
any interested person who has studied basic biology and psychology,
including information on human physiology and brain function,
should be able to understand much of the information without un-
due difficulty. If you have ever used terms like "gut reaction" or
"heartache" and wished to know more about how the gut and the
heart are connected to cognitive and emotional events in the brain
and mind, I believe you will be rewarded by reading this volume.
The thought and research that led up to and culminated in the
writing of this book have been shaped and influenced by many
forces and, especially, many individuals over a great number of years.
There are too many people to mention separately, but those that
affected me the most include (1) the faculty of the Department of
Psychology at the University of Notre Dame in the late 1960s; (2) the
faculty and fellow graduate students of the Department of Biopsy-
chology and the Medical School at the University of Chicago in the
early 1970s; (3) since the late 1970s, my colleagues in the Depart-
ments of Psychiatry, Nuclear Medicine (PET facility), and Pharma-
cology at the University of Michigan Medical Center, especially the
faculty of the Department of Psychiatry Anxiety Disorders Program;
(4) colleagues who are members and officers of the American Psy-
chosomatic Society; and (5) my editor and the editorial staff at Ox-
ford University Press. I thank the University of Michigan Medical
School, which granted me a sabbatical during which time most of
the writing was completed. And I thank my wife and children, Susan,
Leah, and Peter, who constantly had to step over multiple piles of
books and papers throughout our house for a year while I was
writing.
Even though the chapters have different free-standing topics,
the book is structured with the assumption that it will be read from
beginning to end as a coherent whole. The first six chapters could
be considered background. Chapters 2,5, and 6 review mainly older
research that may be considered the direct historical roots from
PREFACE ix
which this topic grew. The early historical issues are (1) the emerging
importance of the physical, the body including the brain, in philo-
sophical and early psychological speculation; (2) the influence of the
emerging biological sciences in the nineteenth century in further
reinforcing this interest in the body per se; and (3) the focus on the
study of sensation and perception in early experimental psychology.
Chapters 7 through 9 contain the bulk of the recent areas of primary
interest in interoception research—alimentary (gastrointestinal),
respiratory, vascular, and (especially) cardiac systems, along with the
underlying neural science. Chapters 10 and 11 discuss related areas
that are not always considered interoceptive processes. Chapter 12
presents data concerning interoceptive processes in psychiatric dis-
orders. Chapter 13 briefly touches on the relationship between in-
teroception and consciousness. Chapter 14 presents a summary and
some recommendations for future directions this field might take.
Ann Arbor, Michigan O. G. C.
Description:It has been known for over a century that there is an afferent(body-to-brain), as well as an efferent(brain-to-body), component to the visceral-atonomic nervous system. Despite the fundamental importance of bodily afferent information- sometimes called interoception- to central nervous system contro
