Discussion
Interoception represents one of the most important information conveyed
to the cerebral cortex, as it also influences somatosensory perception
and its neural correlates (Al et al., 2020). The present study was aimed
at investigating the relation between the HEP amplitude, considered an
index of interoceptive accuracy, hypnotizability, which is associated
with variations of interoceptive brain regions (Landry et al., 2017),
and the state of consciousness, which changes during hypnosis in highs,
but not in lows (Elkins, et al., 2015; Pekala et al., 2017).
Interoceptive signals (and thus, the HEP), in fact, are influenced by
the state of consciousness differently from exteroceptive information
(Baranauskas et al., 2021), and during wakefulness highs display lower
interoceptive accuracy than lows, according to the heartbeat counting
task.
In the present study, self-reports indicate that hypnotizability-related
differences were not biased by sleepiness, and that only highs
experienced a change in their state of consciousness, possibly
facilitated by their greater attentional abilities enabling them to be
deeply absorbed in the induction procedure.