Interoceptive Signals Bias Decision Making in Rhesus Macaques.

Influential theories have proposed that the organs of the body send information to the brain and these signals contribute to higher cognitive functions including emotion. Concomitantly, the brain adjusts body physiology to the behavioral agenda of the organism. Empirical support for these ideas, however, has been limited because of the difficulty of dissociating the contributions of brain circuits and body physiology to cognitive processing. Here we selectively manipulated the autonomic state of the body using drugs that do not cross the blood-brain barrier while macaques performed complex decision-making tasks. Drugs that induced sustained peripheral sympathetic activity significantly altered decision making. These findings suggest that ascending, interoceptive signals play a critical role in shaping behavior.