NCT06237530

Interoception and Body Scan

Exploring Visceral Body Scan, Somatosensory Body Scan, and External Meditation

• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 1 / Phase 2
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 48 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Valencia · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Body scan meditation has been assumed to be an interoceptive intervention, and the evidence for its effects on interoceptive processes is unclear. Although this mindfulness based exercise typically involves focusing on some interoceptive signals such as breath, it also involves other bodily cues, such as somatosensory cues. The present study aimed to (1) investigate the feasibility of three online delivered mindfulness practices that differ in the signals targeted: visceral body scan (VBS), somatosensory body scan (SBS), and external (non body) meditation (ECM), and (2) gain insight into the potentially different effects of these interventions on interoceptive and other psychological outcomes in order to inform future full scale randomized controlled trials (RCT).

Conditions

• Healthy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Visceral body scan (VBS)	The VBS consisted of a mindfulness exercise designed to bring awareness to visceral sensations in the cardiac, respiratory, gastrointestinal, and urinary systems. These physiological systems were chosen because most of the paradigms developed in the literature to assess interoception focus on them (Khalsa et al., and they are widely recognized in the literature as interoceptive senses (Nord \& Garfinkel, 2022)
BEHAVIORAL	Somatosensory body scan (SBS)	The SBS consisted of a mindfulness exercise designed to bring awareness to tactile (e.g., itching) and musculoskeletal (e.g. g., tension) sensations in different parts of the body, namely, the head and neck, back, arms, and legs. Body scan exercises typically focus on these types of bodily cues (in addition to breathing) (Williams, 2010).
BEHAVIORAL	External control meditation (ECM)	The ECM consisted of a mindfulness exercise designed to bring awareness to external stimuli, including sounds and visual properties of the environment.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-07-26
• Primary completion: 2023-08-21
• Completion: 2023-08-21
• First posted: 2024-02-01
• Last updated: 2024-02-01

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Spain