HEART-BRAKE · The functional role of cardiac-brain dynamics in perception under threat

While the body and the brain have long been studied as separate domains, it is now known that bodily states can influence cognitive processes. Threatening situations vividly illustrate this link: imminent threats trigger a rapid slowing in heart rate, which influences how we detect, perceive and react to threats. Given the importance of perception and decision-making in threatening contexts for many domains of daily life, a comprehensive understanding of the body-brain dynamics under threat is imperative. The goal of HEART-BRAKE is to launch an investigation into the function of dynamic changes in cardiac activity for perception under threat. Combining my existing skills and expertise with ambitious training objectives in state-of-the-art neuroimaging and physiology under the supervision of Prof. Karin Roelofs, I will systematically address this goal under two specific objectives. The first objective is to quantify the relationship between dynamic changes in cardiac activity and concurrent neural activity (using alpha oscillations as an index of cortical excitability) and their joint impact on perception under threat of electrical shocks (WP1). The second objective is to assess causation between cardiac activity and perceptual effects by manipulating the strength of the afferent cardiac signal with transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS; WP2). As part of this project, I will learn new experimental techniques (joint magnetoencephalography and electrocardiography) and enhance skills in supervision, leadership and organisation essential for my career goal of establishing my own research group. The findings will contribute to a mechanistic account of how cardiac activity shapes perception, considerably expanding our understanding of body-brain integration. The outcomes may also inform novel training protocols for professionals operating in high-risk environment and offer new perspectives on fear-related pathologies linked to disrupted body-brain axis.