Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi

cell.comBeyond accuracy: interoceptive self-appraisal and the meaning of bodily signalsFor decades, accuracy in detecting internal bodily signals has been considered an important component of emotional experience. Yet this link remains elusive. Across methods and domains, interoceptive ...

www.cell.com/trends/cogni... What if #interoception is more than accurately detecting the body? In our super-fresh Opinion in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social w/ @micahgallen.com @leahbanellis.bsky.social and Gioia Bottesi we ask a different question: what do bodily signals mean for the self?

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

I’m very proud to share this work with you! Fiorella and the team spent a lot of time thinking deeply about recent results; why are interoception and mental health unrelated? We think the field must escape the “quiescence trap” to progress!

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi@fiorelladpc.bsky.social

This also raises questions about how we measure interoception. Resting-state accuracy tasks can tell us something about detecting a particular bodily signal. But they may tell us much less about how people interpret bodily changes in everyday life.

We therefore outline a broader methodological agenda, including physiological perturbation and recovery, ecological sampling, wearable technology, organ-specific measures and approaches that can examine how people describe and interpret their bodily experiences.

Consider an increased heart rate. During exercise, it may signal effort. At a concert, excitement. In a threatening situation, danger. The bodily signal is not enough to explain the experience.

We introduce Interoceptive Self-Appraisal (ISA) to describe this higher-order process: how people evaluate the meaning of bodily signals in relation to themselves and their current context.

For a long time, interoception research has focused on a seemingly straightforward question: How accurately can we detect signals from inside our bodies? In our new Opinion in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, we argue that we need to ask another question too.

What do those bodily signals mean to us? A heartbeat, a change in breathing, or a sensation in the gut does not come with a fixed psychological meaning. How we interpret it depends on context, expectations and what is happening to us.

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

23 July

Replying to @leahbanellis.bsky.social

Our view is that studying interoception at rest may be missing the point entirely. Forthcoming work with @fiorelladpc.bsky.social calls it the "Quiescence Trap", like judging a car's aerodynamics while parked. We need to study bodily sensing during real physiological stress and symptom onset

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

23 July

Sensing your body (‘Interoception’) is everywhere in theories of mental health. But when we tested how well hundreds of people sensed their heart and lungs, the link to symptoms was almost nowhere to be found. 💣 🚨New @natmentalhealth.nature.com paper 🚨🎉 asks why 🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s44...

nature.comPreliminary evidence of kinematic overlap in posed, but not spontaneous, facial expressions of fear and surprise - Scientific ReportsScientific Reports - Preliminary evidence of kinematic overlap in posed, but not spontaneous, facial expressions of fear and surprise

8 June

📢 New paper out on SciRep! Fear and surprise are among the most commonly confused facial expressions. We investigated why by combining expression recognition studies with high-resolution 3D motion capture. Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... @nature.com @natureportfolio.nature.com

escan2026.euHome - ESCAN 2026ESCAN 2026 is the 9th ESCAN Conference, the biennial meeting of the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

1 June

If you're attending #ESCAN2026, come join our symposium: From Body Representation to Self-Experience: Neural Mechanisms and Clinical Applications 📅 5 June 2026 🕔 5:00–6:30 PM 📍 Session S5-2 Hope to see you there!

ESCAN@escaneu.bsky.social

🧠 ESCAN 2026 begins this week in Rome! June 3–6: almost 900 researchers gather at Sapienza University of Rome for the 8th ESCAN Meeting. Highlights: 🔹 Keynotes: Tallon-Baudry, Sandi & Knapska 🔹 Pre-conference events 🔹 General Assembly 🔹 750+ contributions escan2026.eu #ESCAN2026 #Neuroscience

uel.unipd.itNEUROCARE - Neuroscienze e neuropsicologia clinica e riabilitativa dell’età evolutiva | Unipd Executive LearningIl Master Unipd NCE offre una formazione avanzata, teorica e pratica, sulla valutazione e il trattamento dei disturbi neuropsicologici nei bambini e negli adolescenti.

19 May

Proud and excited to teach in the new Short Specialization Degree NEUROCARE @unipd.bsky.social A meaningful project bringing together developmental neuroscience, clinical practice, and rehabilitation✨ thanks Giovanni Mento for having me on board! uel.unipd.it/master-e-cor...

acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com<em>Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry</em> | ACAMH Pediatric Journal | Wiley Online LibraryBackground Learning-based cognitive control (CC), the ability to adapt control strategies based on contextual regularities, has been studied in typically developing (TD) children but remains underex.....

6 May

🚨 NEW PAPER OUT on @acamh.bsky.social JCPP Led by Lisa Toffoli and Giovanni mento acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Exploring learning-based cognitive control in children with ADHD: intact in simple contexts, but challenged under higher cognitive demands. Have a read!!

16 Apr

Such an inspiring day with Prof. Freeston, I am truly grateful for the clever insights and valuable feedback I received today ✨stay tuned for the next updates about my research on #adolescent #interoception 🫀

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

25 Mar

🎉 Excited to share our publication in PNAS! 🎉 What happens when our stream of consciousness turns towards the body? Our fMRI study of 536 individuals finds that 'body-wandering' is associated with patterns of brain connectivity, physiology, affect, and mental health: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

19 Mar

Is there a single "interoceptive sense"? Our new study in @commspsychol.nature.com says: probably not. In 241 participants, cardiac and respiratory interoception were completely uncorrelated — only subjective confidence was shared across domains. www.nature.com/articles/s44... #psychscisky 🧪

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

nature.comInteroceptive ability is uncorrelated across respiratory and cardiac axes in a large scale psychophysical study - Communications PsychologyBayesian psychophysical modelling of cardiac and respiratory interoception (N=241) showed no cross-domain associations in sensitivity, precision, or metacognition, indicating that interoceptive perfor...

18 Mar

Replying to @leahbanellis.bsky.social

Excited to share that our work on organ-specific interoception is now published in Communications Psychology! www.nature.com/articles/s44... @micahgallen.com @the-ecg.org

3 Mar

We are happy to announce that we will host the 2nd #TimingResearchForum @timingresforum.bsky.social Summer School "Sensing Time" at @unipd.bsky.social from 6-10 July 2026. Registration are open until March 15 2026! Clik the link for more information sites.google.com/view/sensing...

3 Mar

Over the course of a dynamic week, you’ll examine time perception through psychology, neuroscience, and state-of-the-art technologies. Gain hands-on experience with real research tools such as EEG, psychophysiological measures , eye-tracking, and non-invasive brain stimulation.

27 Feb

Can't wait to test it!

Micah G. Allen@micahgallen.com

It’s time to turn towards the motor control side of interoception!

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

20 Feb

This is coming along very nicely. Fascinating hemispheric and areal differences in response to high and low frequency heart rate variability. My favorite brain region, at long last!

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

19 Feb

accidental physiology art

mqmentalhealth.orgMQ Fellowships | MQ Mental Health ResearchThe MQ Fellows Award supports early-career scientists globally, encouraging them to advance mental health research. The aim is to retain top talent and increase diversity within the field.

13 Feb

Happy to announce that my proposal on #adolescent #interoception and #digitalhealth has been shortlisted to enter stage 2 of the grant review process! 🫀🧠📱 Fingers crossed! 🤞🏻 @mqmentalhealth.bsky.social

MQ Mental Health Research@mqmentalhealth.bsky.social

📢Want to be an MQ Research Fellow? If you're an early career mental health researcher (3-7yrs post doc), based at a research institution anywhere in the world then we want to hear from you! Find out more and submit your expression of interest today: www.mqmentalhealth.org/our-work/res...

t.cohttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2026.02.002

11 Feb

📢 New paper! Just published in @elsevierconnect.bsky.social #Cortex 🧠 ⏱️This study compares the EEG signatures of explicit and implicit timing, revealing largely overlapping neural dynamics and a key role of expectation and motor preparation 🔓Open access 🔗https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2026.02.002

onlinelibrary.wiley.com<em>Psychophysiology</em> | SPR Journal | Wiley Online LibraryBeing close to others has a beneficial impact on stress-induced physiological reactivity. Tracking the modulation of the startle reflex during stress, we showed that the stress buffering selectively ...

10 Feb

📢 New paper alert! Just published in @therealspr.bsky.social #Psychophysiology! Led by Antonio Maffei this research shows that social proximity buffers stress-related startle inhibition 🔊, regulating threat vigilance during public speaking 👥🎤 Enjoy the read! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

9 Feb

Paper submitted! A very special piece led by @fiorelladpc.bsky.social in which we finally write down what we really think is going on with interoception and emotion. Stay tuned!

link.europa.euMSCA awards €404.3 million to postdoctoral researchers1610 outstanding postdoctoral researchers were selected for funding among 17,066 applicants.

9 Feb

🧠🫀 Glad to see my proposal on adolescents’ #interoception recognised with a #SealofExcellence This achievement wouldn’t have been possible without my supervisory team @micahgallen.com Gioia Bottesi @skhalsa.bsky.social Let’s try again next year! 💪 link.europa.eu/tPVTWM

14 Oct 2025

Thrilled to share some news! 🎉📷 Don't miss my #poster tomorrow. I could not be at the conference for unforeseen circumstances but feel free to email me with all your questions! - via #Whova Event Platform @therealspr.bsky.social

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

26 Sept 2025

“Added value” 🙄

Rutger K. 🟥@anotheraspirin.bsky.social

This is a problem.

Society for Psychophysiological Research (SPR)

24 Sept 2025

Luigi (@luigi_micillo ) truly touched my🫀by citing me in his PhD thesis acknowledgments 🥹 From that conference to now, it’s been a wild journey — and this is just the beginning! Wishing him all the best, both as a researcher and the amazing person he is 🫶🏻 Let’s crush the PhD defense now!

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

Sahib Khalsa

@skhalsa.bsky.social

17 Sept 2025

What if many psychiatric disorders share the same hidden glitch in how the brain infers reality? In a new volume, Al Powers and I gather experts to examine how disrupted sensory inference across #vision, #touch, #proprioception and #interoception might unify our understanding.

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

@therealspr.bsky.social

12 Sept 2025

✨ 🎬 “Psychophys Is” 2025 videos are lighting up the contest! This video was submitted by Antonio Maffei, @fiorelladpc.bsky.social & Salvatore Frisina 🔗 Submit your video before October 1, 2025: sprweb.org/spr-video-cont fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe...

fast.wistia.netThe Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Stress1 min 29 sec video

marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.euMSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 receives record number of 17,058 proposalsThis year’s annual MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships call has attracted considerable interest from the research community with 17,058 proposals submitted.

12 Sept 2025

#MSCAPF call closed and number of applications is huuuge this year😱 I’m happy with my proposal and, as ⁦‪Sahib Khalsa‬⁩ said “every grant submission it’s worth celebrating the opportunity to articulate the best version of your science” marie-sklodowska-curie-actions.ec.europa.eu/node/1463

12 Sept 2025

I’m really grateful to my supervisory team @skhalsa.bsky.social @micahgallen.com & Gioia Bottesi for the precious support throughout and for helping me refine my insights for the proposal, let’s keep fingers crossed! 🤞🏻 #MSCAActions

frontiersin.orgFrontiers | Nutritional habits, inhibitory control, and emotional reactivity to healthy and unhealthy food cues in non-obese female students: insights from heart rate variabilityBackgroundResearch shows that the nutritional habits of university students do not follow the national recommendations. While most studies have focused on th...

🧠🍎 New study alert! Among female university students, emotional reactivity and self-regulation (measured via heart rate variability, HRV) play a key role in shaping food choices. 👉 www.frontiersin.org/journals/nut... @frontiersmedia.bsky.social

Take-home message: promoting self-regulation capacity + active lifestyles may help students resist unhealthy temptations and maintain balanced nutrition.

Huge thanks to my amazing co-authors for their brilliant contributions to this work 🙌👩‍🔬👨‍🔬 @francafranchini.bsky.social Giulia Buodo & Carmen Belacchi

Unhealthy foods triggered stronger pleasantness, arousal, and craving compared to healthy options 🍔🍩 > 🥦🐟

But here’s the twist: higher HRV and regular physical activity were linked to less junk food and more fruit/veg intake 🌿✨

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

medrxiv.orgInteroceptive Ability is Unrelated to Mental Health Symptoms: Evidence From a Large Scale Multi-Domain Psychophysical InvestigationInteroception-the sensing and perception of the internal viscera-is widely cast as a transdiagnostic mechanism linking brain-body interaction to mental illness. Prevailing models propose that altered ...

27 Aug 2025

Are interoception and mental health linked? Many assume so, with interoception even described as a psychiatric “p-factor.” But in our latest preprint, we were surprised to find little evidence for such a connection. www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1... 🧵 Thread with our reflections on the matter 👇

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi reposted

Marc Wittmann

@marcwittmann.bsky.social

sciencedirect.comIn the heart of time: investigating the link between cardiac activity and interoception in explicit and implicit timingRecent research suggests that our sense of time is influenced by interoceptive abilities. Efficient access to bodily signals, measured objectively (in…

More news on interoception and time perception!

Fiorella Del Popolo Cristaldi@fiorelladpc.bsky.social

🎉 Happy to share our latest paper on #Physiology&Behavior @elsevierconnect.bsky.social Together with Luigi Micillo, Nicola Cellini and Giovanna Mioni we explored the link between cardiac #interoception and time perception 🧵in the comments

🧵4/n Better interoceptive accuracy sped up responses in the implicit foreperiod task. Higher interoceptive confidence led to worse performance in time bisection. Cardiac vagal tone influenced self-paced tapping in explicit timing tasks.

🧵5/5 These findings highlight the distinct roles of cardiac interoception and activity in explicit and implicit timing, emphasizing their nuanced contributions to time perception.

🧵2/n Interoceptive accuracy was assessed using a HCT. Interoceptive sensibility was measured using the Body Perception Questionnaire and subjective confidence ratings (0–9 scale) provided during the HCT. Resting HRV served as an index of cardiac vagal control.

🧵3/n In Study 1, participants (N = 31, M = 23.1 years, SD = 3.23) completed an implicit timing task (foreperiod) and an explicit timing task (time bisection). In Study 2, participants (N = 51, M = 22.6 years, SD = 1.52) performed an explicit timing task (self-paced finger-tapping).

🧵1/n We examined how cardiac and interoceptive signals shape time perception. Implicit and explicit timing were tested via foreperiod, bisection, and tapping tasks.

23 June 2025

Excited to chair @micahgallen.com 's fantastic seminar this Wednesday, June 25th at DPG! 🧠🫀 Join us in 📍 Room 2C, PSICO2 building. Don’t miss it! 🚀 #UniversityOfPadova #DepartmentOfGeneralPsychology