Physiological Awareness Is Negatively Related to Inhibitory Functioning in Tourette Syndrome.
In TS, stronger body awareness pairs with weaker stop control, so plan interventions that work with, not against, those internal signals.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked adults with Tourette syndrome to fill out two short forms. One form asked how well they notice heartbeats, stomach growls, and other body signals. The second form asked about the urge they feel right before a tic.
Each adult then did a quick computer test. The test measured how fast they could stop themselves from pressing a key. The researchers wanted to see if stronger body awareness linked to weaker self-control.
What they found
Adults who felt their body signals more clearly also scored worse on the stop test. They also reported stronger pre-tic urges.
In plain words, the more you feel inside, the harder it is to hold a tic back.
How this fits with other research
McGrother et al. (1996) seems to say the opposite. In typical college students, more nervous habits went hand-in-hand with more body awareness. The twist: those students did not have TS. The contradiction fades when you see the first study looked at everyday fidgets, not clinical tics.
Griffith et al. (2012) ties the pieces together. Their review says tics, stereotypy, and self-injury all ride the same faulty cortical-basal ganglia circuits. Heightened body focus may be one output of that faulty wiring.
Meyer et al. (1987) warned us long ago: do not blame every repetitive move on outside rewards. Inner biology matters. The new data support that warning.
Why it matters
If your client feels tics coming, teaching them to ignore body cues might backfire. Instead, try acceptance and competing-response drills that allow the feeling while blocking the movement. Also, expect longer practice times for clients who score high on body-awareness surveys.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add a two-question body-awareness check to your intake and use the score to set realistic response-block practice lengths.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
In Tourette syndrome (TS), tics are characteristically preceded by subjective bodily experiences referred to as premonitory sensations. Premonitory sensory phenomena play a key role in behavior therapy for tics, the success of which has also been suggested to be related to inhibitory functioning. We investigated whether TS was associated with altered internal physiological awareness and how this may interact with the neuropsychological characteristics of TS. We compared the awareness of bodily sensations and inhibitory functioning in 18 adult patients with uncomplicated TS and 18 healthy controls. We also explored relationships between these factors, tic severity, and premonitory sensations. Patients with TS exhibited significantly higher scores on the Private Body Consciousness (PBC) scale and inhibitory deficits on traditional and emotional Stroop tests. PBC scores were not correlated with premonitory sensations or tic severity. However, inhibitory functioning was negatively related to PBC scores and premonitory sensations. Relationships between inhibitory performance and tic severity were complex. In conclusion, patients with TS exhibit increased PBC in addition to inhibitory deficits. Aspects of inhibitory functioning are related to PBC, premonitory sensations, and tic severity. Complex interplay between neuropsychological and neurophysiological mechanisms could therefore determine tic severity and the success of behavioral treatments.
Behavior modification, 2014 · doi:10.1177/0145445513504431