Braga, Patrícia VilelaVieira, BeatrizCarina, FernandesBarbosa, FernandoSantos, Fernando FerreiraPereira, Mariana R.Rocha, Nuno BarbosaMazer, PrunePasion, RitaSchütz-Bosbach, SimonePaiva, Tiago OliveiraCampos, CarlosCampos, CarlosRocha, NunoMazer, Prune2025-11-062025-11-062025-07Braga, P. V., Vieira, B., Carina, F., Barbosa, F., Ferreira-Santos, F., Pereira, M. R., Rocha, N. B., Mazer, P., Pasion, R., Schütz-Bosbach, S., Paiva, T. O., & Campos, C. (2025). Does attention to cardiac sensations modulate heartbeat-evoked potentials even after controlling for cognitive demands? International Journal of Psychophysiology - Proceedings of the 22nd World Congress of Psychophysiology (IOP 2025) of the International Organization of Psychophysiology (IOP), 213 (Supplement), 112991. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2025.112991http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/30762Heartbeat-evoked potentials (HEP) have been shown to be modulated by attentional focus (cardiac vs. exteroceptive attention), suggesting that HEP are a neural correlate of interoceptive prediction errors. However, this effect has not been consistently replicated, and differences in cognitive effort when contrasting interoceptive vs. exteroceptive attention may be a confounding factor. We devised a modified Heartbeat Attention Task to examine whether cardiac attention can modulate HEP amplitude even when cognitive demands are matched across interoceptive and exteroceptive conditions. In exteroceptive blocks, subjects were required to count subtle bursts of volume increase embedded within a continuous white noise. The bursts’ volume was individually tailored for each participant (near absolute threshold) and were presented in a rhythmic pattern replicating a typical heart rate. In interoceptive blocks, participants were asked to count their heartbeats, whilst the white noise was still presented, ensuring that the neural effects were driven by the attention shift rather than sensory changes. The task was first completed by 50 participants (25F; 28.44y) during a 9-electrode EEG recording: frontal, central and parietal sites. No significant differences were found regarding counted heartbeats (M=122.00) vs white noise bursts (M=118.86) as well as on perceived attentional efforts (heart M=65.00 vs bursts M=67.00), indicating similar task demands across conditions. No significant differences between conditions were found on HEP amplitude across all electrodes (p > .137 for all), suggesting no attentional modulation of HEP amplitude after accounting for cognitive demands. Due to the reduced number of electrodes, a follow-up sample of 26 participants (13F; 21.73y) completed the task using a new EEG geodesic 64-channel sensor net. This dataset is currently under processing and will allow for a more comprehensive data-driven analytic approach (cluster-based permutation test) to ensure whether the attentional modulation of HEP amplitude is indeed absent when accounting for cognitive demands.engconference paper10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2025.1129911872-7697