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Category: Project

Description: Interoception refers to the central nervous system's processing of internal physiological signals, such as heartrate and appetite signals (Khalsa et al., 2018). Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a disorder characterised by chronic widespread pain, in addition to fatigue, sleep disturbances, and autonomic disturbances (Sarzi-Puttini et al., 2020). Previous research suggests that FMS might be associated with altered interoceptive processing (e.g., Di Lernia et al., 2020; Duschek et al., 2015), but there have been some difficulties in replicating extant findings (Borg et al., 2018; Rost et al., 2017; Valenzuela-Moguillansky et al., 2017). In tandem with this issue, the validity of existing measures of cardiac accuracy has been widely challenged recently, with evidence indicating that they are susceptible to both physiological and psychological confounds (e.g., Desmedt et al., 2020; Murphy et al., 2018; Ring et al., 2015; Zamariola et al., 2018). To address these problems, the aim of the present study is to examine cardiac interoceptive accuracy in adults with fibromyalgia using a recently-developed method: the Phase Adjustment Task (Plans, Ponzo et al., 2020). In this task, participants’ heartrate is detected using a smartphone camera, and participants use a dial to advance or delay auditory tones until they perceive the tones to be synchronous (in-phase) with their heartbeat. The task appears to be free from the confounds of other cardiac measures in healthy adults (Plans, Ponzo et al., 2020), and can be completed at home using an iPhone app, making it far more accessible than traditional heartbeat perception tasks. We are aiming to examine whether subgroups of people with FMS can be identified according to interoceptive accuracy levels, and to explore the factors of FMS symptomology that might characterise these groups. We will also gather feedback on the usability of the task. If we find that this task is valid for use with people with FMS, we might be able to examine the links between internal bodily awareness and fibromyalgia symptoms more closely in future research (e.g., using longitudinal methods), which could lead to improvements in the diagnosis and monitoring FMS.