Rhesus monkeys can perceive their own heartbeat

The California National Primate Research Center at the University of California, Davis, and Royal Holloway, University of London have collaborated on a study that shows rhesus macaques can see their own heartbeats. The first-of-its-kind animal model of interoception was created by the research. Interoception is the ability to sense the internal state of a person's body. The findings provide an important model for future psychiatric and neuroscience research as they show that interoception is associated with anxiety, depression, and Alzheimer's disease.

The study is part of a collaboration between a professor at UC Davis and a core scientist at the CNPRC.

Four rhesus monkeys sat in front of an eye tracker that displayed stimuli that bounced and generated a sound, either faster or slower, with their heartbeats. The fact that monkeys and human babies look for things that are unexpected is what makes this experiment possible.

The monkeys spent more time looking at the stimuli presented out of rhythm with their heartbeats than they did at the stimuli in rhythm with their heartbeats. The results are consistent with previous evidence in human infants. The first evidence that rhesus monkeys have a human-like capacity to perceive their heartbeats is provided by this.

Why do we care? All aspects of human life are involved in Interoception, or the self-monitoring of your physiological systems.

Issues within the body that require our attention can be seen by the ability to sense our internal state. Mental health issues such as anxiety and depression can be caused by impaired interoceptive awareness.

We don't know a lot about how involution develops in early infancy or how it comes to be across evolutionary time.

Deficits are linked to Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease has been linked to deficits in interoception.

The model will be used in future studies of neurodegenerative diseases.

The rhesus macaque model may be used to further our understanding of brain and body function.

The next step is to study the mechanism by which interoception may be involved in different conditions.

More information: Rhesus monkeys have an interoceptive sense of their beating hearts, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2119868119. Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Citation: Rhesus monkeys can perceive their own heartbeat (2022, April 11) retrieved 11 April 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-rhesus-monkeys-heartbeat.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.