Anterior Insula Activation During Cardiac Interoception Relates to Depressive Symptom Severity in HIV-Positive and HIV-Negative Postmenopausal Women

Objective This study aimed to determine whether subclinical symptoms of depression in postmenopausal women are associated with blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activity within the anterior insula during cardiac interoceptive awareness and whether this association differs for persons living with the human immunodeficiency virus (PWH). Method Twenty-three postmenopausal (mean [standard deviation] age = 56.5 [4.8] years) and 27 HIV-negative women (mean [standard deviation] age = 56.4 [8.0]) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a heartbeat detection task. BOLD activation within the bilateral anterior insula based on the contrast of a heartbeat detection condition with and without a distracting tone was entered along with age, HIV status, and psychological stress into two multivariate regression models with self-reported depressive symptom severity as the outcome. Results Depressive symptoms did not vary by HIV status, nor was there a main effect or interaction for PWH on insula BOLD activation. Depressive symptoms were positively associated with psychological stress for the left (beta = 0.310, t(49) = 2.352, p = .023) and right brain models (beta = 0.296, t(49) = 2.265, p = .028) as well as the magnitude of BOLD activation in the left insula (beta = 0.290, t(49) = 2.218, p = .032) and right insula (beta = 0.318, t(49) = 2.453, p = .018), respectively. Exploratory analyses revealed that greater magnitude of BOLD activation attributed to exteroceptive noise (tone) was also correlated with self-reported distrust and preoccupation with interoceptive sensations. Conclusions Results support an active interference model for interoceptive awareness wherein greater BOLD signal in the anterior insula in the presence of distracting exteroceptive stimuli may reflect greater prediction error, a feature of depression.