When the Score Doesn't Keep: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Blunted Interoception

The awareness of bodily sensation and urges has been increasingly referred to as interoception (Brewer et al., 2021a). Atypical interoceptive awareness has been linked to a variety of distinct diagnoses. There are reports of both blunted and heightened interoception in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) (Mul et al., 2018), while heightened interoception has been reported among anxiety disorders (Domshke, 2009; Puigserver, 2024) and blunted interoception in Major Depressive Disorder (Eggart et al., 2019; Dunne et al., 2023), Alcohol Use Disorder (Weng et al., 2021), and others. Some research exists on the comorbidity of interoceptive difficulties with alexithymia (Mul et al., 2018, Puigserver, 2024), and atypical interoception as a risk factor for psychopathology more broadly (Brewer et al., 2021b). There has also been research on treatments that hone interoception, like yoga and mindfulness, as an intervention to cardiovascular disorders, substance abuse disorder, and mood disorders (Weng et al., 2021). Limited research exists at this time exploring interoceptive blunting as a conditioned response to childhood abuse or neglect, indicated in many psychological and physical pathologies. There could be a link between interoceptive challenges and maternal stress, for example, considering a study where pregnant women with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) gave a blunted cortisol response when startled (Carbone et al., 2023). This text proposes a study design to perform a statistical analysis comparing ACEs and interoceptive blunting using peer reviewed and replicated measures: the ACEs 10-item questionnaire and the Brief MAIA-2 (Rogowska, 2023).