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Preprint . 2026
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
Data sources: Datacite
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A Somatic Ontology for Computational Therapeutics: Formalizing Body-Based Experience for Digital Mental Health

Authors: DeGarbo, Justin;

A Somatic Ontology for Computational Therapeutics: Formalizing Body-Based Experience for Digital Mental Health

Abstract

Digital mental health platforms increasingly incorporate body-based therapeutic approaches, yet no standardized ontology exists for representing somatic experience computationally. This paper introduces the Cathexis Somatic Ontology (CSO), a formal vocabulary and relational schema for encoding body-based therapeutic data. The CSO defines entity classes for anatomical zones (29 zones with clinical significance rationale), sensation qualities (20 phenomenological descriptors), neurobiological organization patterns (16 territories derived from predictive processing, primary affect systems, and somatic marker theory), therapeutic change mechanisms (3 memory-system-based pathways), and intervention architectures (7 mechanism types). Entities are organized within a Markov blanket framework comprising four components (internal states, external states, sensory states, and active states), providing a principled computational structure derived from Friston's free energy principle. The ontology is grounded in seven major research programs: constructed emotion theory (Barrett), predictive processing (Friston), affective neuroscience (Panksepp), somatic markers (Damasio), neuropsychoanalysis (Solms), the entangled brain framework (Pessoa), and memory systems (Kandel, Nader, Schiller, Ecker). New to this version, Pessoa's work on combinatorial brain organization provides the architectural foundation for how the CSO represents distributed neural activation. Version 2.0 introduces a trifecta visualization architecture: three complementary rendering surfaces (BRAIN, BODY, WORLD) that correspond to the Markov blanket's internal, sensory, and external state components, sharing a unified rendering engine and visual language. Machine-readable representations (OWL, JSON-LD, Turtle) accompany CSO v1.1 as supplementary files.

Keywords

Markov blanket, somatic experience, computational psychiatry, predictive processing, interoception, Cathexis Somatic Ontology, Model Context Protocol, active inference, constructed emotion, somatic ontology, affective neuroscience, digital therapeutics, mental health, body-based therapy

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average
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