Embodied Sensory Deprivation Hypothesis (ESDH): An Evolutionary Model of Sensory Malnutrition Linking Interoceptive Dysregulation, Anxiety, and Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction

The human nervous system evolved in environments characterized by continuous exposure to rich, multimodal bodily inputs, including locomotion, manual activity, physical effort, social touch, sexual contact, environmental variability, thermal fluctuations, and complex proprioceptive challenges. In contrast, modern lifestyles have progressively reduced many of these embodied sensory exposures through sedentarism, automation, climate-controlled environments, cushioned footwear, reduced manual labor, digital socialization, and diminished physical contact. Here, we propose the Embodied Sensory Deprivation Hypothesis (ESDH), an evolutionary and neurophysiological framework suggesting that a chronic reduction in the quantity, diversity, and variability of biologically meaningful sensory inputs may impair the calibration of interoceptive, proprioceptive, tactile, thermosensory, and autonomic regulatory systems. Contemporary models of predictive coding, active inference, and allostasis describe the brain as a prediction-generating organ that continuously regulates the body by integrating incoming sensory signals with prior expectations. Within this framework, chronic sensory impoverishment may increase physiological uncertainty, amplify prediction errors, and contribute to maladaptive autonomic, emotional, and somatic responses. We further suggest that the cumulative loss of embodied sensory experiences may be conceptualized as a form of sensory malnutrition, reflecting a mismatch between the sensory ecology in which the human nervous system evolved and the sensory conditions typical of modern industrialized societies. We hypothesize that this mismatch may contribute to anxiety-related conditions, somatic hypervigilance, psychosomatic symptom expression, and Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction (DGBI), all of which involve altered interoceptive processing, autonomic dysregulation, and disrupted body-brain communication. At present, ESDH should be considered a hypothesis-generating model rather than a defined clinical entity. However, if future observational and interventional studies identify a reproducible phenotype characterized by chronic embodied sensory impoverishment, interoceptive dysregulation, autonomic instability, anxiety, somatic amplification, and responsiveness to sensory enrichment interventions, this construct may evolve into a formal clinical syndrome, provisionally termed Embodied Input Deficiency Syndrome (EIDS). The ESDH framework offers a novel integrative perspective linking interoception, predictive neuroscience, evolutionary medicine, psychosomatic medicine, and gut-brain interaction research. By reframing modern sensory impoverishment as a potential contributor to body-brain dysregulation, it generates testable predictions for future clinical, translational, and interventional studies.