The inadequacy of a categorial approach to mental health diagnosis is now well-recognised,
with many authors, diagnostic manuals and funding bodies advocating a dimensional, trans …

Interoception refers to the perception of the physiological condition of the body, including
hunger, temperature, and heart rate. There is a growing appreciation that interoception is …

It is widely accepted that autism is associated with disordered emotion processing and, in
particular, with deficits of emotional reciprocity such as impaired emotion recognition and …

The anterior insular cortex (AIC) is implicated in a wide range of conditions and behaviours,
from bowel distension and orgasm, to cigarette craving and maternal love, to decision …

It is widely believed that people have privileged and authoritative access to their own
thoughts, and many theories have been proposed to explain this supposed fact. The Opacity …

There is now a wealth of evidence that anterior insular and anterior cingulate cortices have a
close functional relationship, such that they may be considered together as input and output …

Interoceptive awareness (IA) is associated with emotional experience, the processing of
emotional stimuli, and activation of brain structures that monitor the internal visceral and …

Research investigating the alexithymia construct is advancing rapidly and has broadened
considerably in recent years as a result of interdisciplinary efforts, new methodologies, and …

Alexithymia is characterized by difficulties in identifying, differentiating and describing
feelings. A high prevalence of alexithymia has often been observed in clinical disorders …

The construct of alexithymia encompasses the characteristics of difficulty identifying feelings,
difficulty describing feelings, externally oriented thinking, and a limited imaginal capacity …