Interoception and Gut Feelings: Unconscious Body Signals’ Impact on Brain Function, Behavior and Belief Processes

Abstract

The term “gut feelings” is widely used in everyday language and has a number of connotations ranging from intuition, instinctive feeling, making decisions without rational underpinnings, to serendipity. While in a psychosomatic context the gastrointestinal tract has long been known to respond to emotions and stress, exactly how the gut itself could be a source of feelings/emotions has remained elusive. Neurobiological research in the past two decades has revealed that there is a continuous flow of information from the digestive tract and other internal organs to the brain. A large part of this information does not reach the level of consciousness, but is important for the autonomic control of body functions. In addition, brain imaging techniques have revealed that part of the subconscious information that flows from internal organs is also fed into the corticolimbic system where it is very likely to influence thinking, emotions, and mood. This process is embodied in the term “interoception,” and it is emerging that - via the process of interoception - signals from the gut and other internal organs exert an influence on our “feelings” (emotion, cognition, and mood), and that a disturbance in this interoception has an impact on neuropsychiatric diseases. In this relationship, interoception is also very likely to have an impact on the neurobiological basis of belief processes.