"Internal Reception": A Sixth Sense in Humans!

Scientific studies have found that humans possess a sixth sense alongside the five well-known senses, a sense that is not widely discussed despite potentially being just as important to human well-being.

This sense is known as “interoception,” which is the body’s ability to sense and interpret its internal signals, such as heart rate, breathing, hunger, and body temperature.

Psychologists Jennifer Murphy of Royal Holloway, University of London, and Freya Prentice of University College London, in an article published in 2022, explained that this sense alerts the body when its balance is disrupted, prompting actions such as drinking when thirsty or removing heavy clothing when feeling hot.

However, researchers have begun to recognize that the role of “interoception” extends beyond regulating basic biological needs, as it may contribute to a range of psychological disorders, including:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which appears to be affected by a reduced ability to read bodily signals.

The scientific hypothesis suggests that an individual’s awareness of their muscle tension, breathing, and heartbeats provides important indicators about whether the situation they are experiencing is “safe” or “unsafe.” When this process is disrupted, it may contribute to the emergence of psychological symptoms, such as a person with anxiety becoming hyper-aware of their heartbeat during social interactions, thereby increasing their sense of discomfort.

A review conducted by Murphy and Prentice of 93 studies found clear gender differences in the accuracy of this sense, with women showing lower accuracy in tasks related to heartbeats. This may partially explain the higher rates of anxiety and depression among women compared to men starting from puberty, although the researchers emphasized that the relationship is complex and not yet fully understood.

In the same context, an experiment conducted by researcher Nils Kroemer of the University of Tübingen in Germany, with results published this year, found that individuals with strong and accurate interoception experience less severe mood swings related to hunger compared to those with weaker interoception. Additionally, a research team from the University of California, Los Angeles, using an ingestible pill that emits vibrations to measure interoception, found that patients with anorexia nervosa struggle to sense and interpret intestinal signals even after regaining their normal weight.

Conversely, a research team led by cognitive researcher Felix Scholcher of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) questioned the accuracy of the concept of “interoception” itself, arguing that the term is sometimes used in a way that oversimplifies a phenomenon that is more complex and diverse than it suggests. Researcher Barry Smith of the University of London holds that humans have up to 33 different senses, not just five.

In conclusion, researchers emphasize that humans are more connected to their internal senses than they realize, and that improving the understanding of factors influencing the accuracy of this sense may be an important step toward developing better treatments for various psychological disorders in the future.