Interoception—the ability to attend to internal bodily signals—is thought to support self-awareness, emotion regulation, and cognitive function, but empirical evidence for its neural basis is limited. In this study, 36 healthy adults performed the Heartbeat Counting Task while their brain activity was recorded with EEG. Source localization revealed that, compared to rest, the task increased alpha-frequency current density primarily in the right parahippocampal gyrus. Additionally, changes in beta-frequency activity in medial cortical structures, especially the cingulate gyrus, correlated with task performance. These findings suggest that EEG source localization can reveal neural correlates of interoceptive accuracy.
The sense of agency—the feeling that 'I am the one causing my actions and their effects'—is fundamental to intentional behavior and social interaction. This mini-review examines evidence from non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) studies that target brain regions linked to agency, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, cingulate cortex, supplementary motor areas, posterior parietal cortex, and cerebellum. While clinical and imaging studies have identified these regions as part of an agency-related network, their causal roles in integrating sensorimotor information, intentionalization, and action monitoring remain unclear because most evidence is correlational. NIBS techniques can help clarify these causal relationships, potentially improving understanding of how agency functions or fails in complex social contexts.