The moderating influence of self-reported interoceptive awareness
A second aim of the study was to explore the potential moderating effects of subjective interoceptive awareness (MAIA scores) on interoceptive network engagement, with the hypothesis that greater subjective interoceptive awareness would be supported by increased SLN activity in the ACC and anterior insula, commensurate with their established role in supporting interoceptive accuracy (Despite the surprising widespread pattern of cortical deactivation during interoception of the breath, the ACC was spared from deactivation in participants who generally reported greater interoceptive awareness via the MAIA total score. Exploratory analyses of the MAIA subfactors suggested that this moderating effect was driven primarily by the Emotion Awareness, Self-Regulation, and Body Listening subfactors, which were intended to assess “Mind-Body Integration” during the scale’s construction (