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A meta-analytic review of child maltreatment and interoception

Nature Mental Health volume 3, pages 821–837 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Interoception—the ability to sense internal bodily signals such as heartbeat or breathing—plays a central role in both mental and physical health. Disruptions in interoception are increasingly recognized as important contributors to various psychological and medical conditions, yet the origins remain unclear. One possible risk factor is exposure to childhood maltreatment. Here we present a meta-analytic review examining the association between child maltreatment and different aspects of interoception. In this Analysis, we use meta-analytic methods to examine the relationship between childhood maltreatment and interoception across 17 studies. We found no consistent association between childhood maltreatment and interoceptive accuracy, sensibility, or awareness. However, a history of childhood maltreatment—particularly emotional maltreatment—was associated with lower body trust, a dimension of interoception reflecting confidence in bodily signals. These findings suggest that early adverse experiences may undermine the foundational sense of trust in one’s body, with potential long-term consequences for mental and physical health.

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Fig. 1: PRISMA flowchart of the literature search and inclusion and exclusion decisions.
Fig. 2: Number of included studies by publication year.
Fig. 3: Descriptive summary of included studies.

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Data availability

The dataset used in the current study is available via the OSF repository at https://osf.io/swmbc.

Code availability

The code used in the current study is available via the OSF repository at https://osf.io/swmbc.

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Acknowledgements

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology, Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Julia Ditzer, Clara Burger, Alisa Ernst, Ilka Böhm & Anna-Lena Zietlow

  2. Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology and Psychotherapy, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Christian Franz Joseph Woll

  3. Institute for Systems Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Medical School Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Susan Garthus-Niegel

  4. Department of Childhood and Families, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway

    Susan Garthus-Niegel

  5. Institute and Policlinic of Occupational and Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Susan Garthus-Niegel

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  1. Julia Ditzer
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  4. Alisa Ernst
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Contributions

J.D.: writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, visualization, project administration, supervision, investigation, formal analysis, methodology and conceptualization. C.F.J.W.: writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, formal analysis, validation and methodology. C.B.: writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, visualization, investigation and validation. A.E.: writing—original draft, investigation and validation. I.B.: writing—review and editing and supervision. S.G.-N.: writing—review and editing. A.-L.Z.: supervision, writing—review and editing and resources.

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Correspondence to Julia Ditzer.

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Ditzer, J., Woll, C.F.J., Burger, C. et al. A meta-analytic review of child maltreatment and interoception. Nat. Mental Health 3, 821–837 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-025-00456-w

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