Biology subjects

Marlow, L.

Publications and source records attributed to Marlow, L..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

Baseline psychological traits contribute to Lake Louise Acute Mountain Sickness score at high altitude

BackgroundInteroception refers to an individuals ability to sense their internal bodily sensations. Acute mountain sickness (AMS) is a common feature of ascent to high altitude that is only partially explained by measures of peripheral physiology. We hypothesised that interoceptive ability may explain the disconnect between measures of physiology and symptom experience in AMS. Methods and MaterialTwo groups of 18 participants were recruited to complete a respiratory interoceptive task three times at two-week intervals. The control group remained in Birmingham (140m altitude) for all three tests. The altitude group completed test 1 in Birmingham, test 2 the day after arrival at 2624m, and test 3 at 2728m after an 11-day trek at high altitude (up to 4800m). ResultsBy measuring changes to metacognitive performance, we showed that acute ascent to altitude neither presented an interoceptive challenge, nor acted as interoceptive training. However, AMS symptom burden throughout the trek was found to relate to sea-level measures of anxiety, agoraphobia, and neuroticism. ConclusionsThis suggests that the Lake Louise AMS score is not solely a reflection of physiological changes on ascent to high altitude, despite often being used as such by researchers and commercial trekking companies alike.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Dissociating breathlessness symptoms from mood in asthma

Asthma is one of many chronic diseases in which discordance between objectively measured pathophysiology and symptom burden is well recognised. Understanding the influences on symptom burden beyond pathophysiology could improve our ability to treat symptoms. While co-morbidities such as anxiety and depression may play a role, the impact of this relationship with symptoms on our ability to perceive bodily sensations (termed interoception), or even our general and symptom-specific attention is not yet understood. Here we studied 63 individuals with asthma and 30 healthy controls. Alongside physiological tests including spirometry, bronchodilator responsiveness, expired nitric oxide and blood eosinophils, we collected self-reported questionnaires covering affective factors such as anxiety and depression, as well as asthma symptoms and asthma-related quality of life (individuals with asthma only). Participants additionally completed a breathing-related interoception task and two attention tasks designed to measure responsiveness to general temporal/spatial cues and specific asthma-related threatening words. We conducted an exploratory factor analysis across the questionnaires which gave rise to key components of Mood and Symptoms, and compared these to physiological, interoceptive and attention measures. While no relationships were found between symptoms and physiological measures in asthma alone, negative mood was related to both decreased interoceptive metacognitive sensitivity ( insight into interoceptive performance) and metacognitive bias (confidence in interoceptive decisions), as well as increased effects of spatial orienting cues in both asthma and controls. Furthermore, the relationship between the extent of symptoms and negative mood revealed potential sub-groups within asthma, with those who displayed the most severe symptoms without concurrent negative mood also demonstrating altered physiological, interoceptive and attention measures. Our findings are a step towards understanding how both symptoms and mood are related to our ability to interpret bodily symptoms, and to explore how the balance between mood and symptoms may help us understand the heterogeneity in conditions such as asthma.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

The Filter Detection Task for measurement of breathing-related interoception and metacognition

The study of the brains processing of sensory inputs from within the body ( interoception) has been gaining rapid popularity in neuroscience, where interoceptive disturbances are thought to exist across a wide range of chronic physiological and psychological conditions. Here we present a task and analysis procedure to quantify specific dimensions of breathing-related interoception, including interoceptive sensitivity (accuracy), decision bias, metacognitive bias, and metacognitive performance. Two major developments address some of the challenges presented by low trial numbers in interoceptive experiments: (i) a novel adaptive algorithm to maintain task performance at 70-75% accuracy; (ii) an extended hierarchical metacognitive model to estimate regression parameters linking metacognitive performance to relevant (e.g. clinical) variables. We demonstrate the utility of the task and analysis developments, using both simulated data and three empirical datasets. This methodology represents an important step towards accurately quantifying interoceptive dimensions from a simple experimental procedure that is compatible with clinical settings.

neuroscience↗