Paper Info
Title
The integration of the internal and external milieu in the insula during dynamic emotional experiences.
Abstract
Whilst external events trigger emotional responses, interoception (the perception of internal physiological states) is fundamental to core emotional experience. By combining high resolution functional neuroimaging with concurrent physiological recordings, we investigated the neural mechanisms of interoceptive integration during free listening to an emotionally salient audio film. We found that cardiac activity, a key interoceptive signal, was robustly synchronised across participants and centrally represented in the posterior insula. Effective connectivity analysis revealed that the anterior insula, specifically tuned to the emotionally salient moments of the audio stream, serves as an integration hub of interoceptive processing: interoceptive states represented in the posterior insula are integrated with exteroceptive representations by the anterior insula to highlight these emotionally salient moments. Our study for the first time demonstrates the insular hierarchy for interoceptive processing during natural emotional experience. These findings provide an ecologically-valid framework for elucidating the neural underpinnings of emotional deficits in neuropsychiatric disorders.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.08.078
NeuroImage
Keywords
Field
DocType
Dynamic causal modelling,Heart rate variability,Insula cortex,Interoception,Naturalistic stimuli
Insula,Cardiac activity,Functional neuroimaging,Cognitive psychology,Psychology,Active listening,Interoception,Perception,Dynamic causal modelling,Salient
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
124
Pt A
1053-8119
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
2
0.41
10
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Vinh T. Nguyen1121.44
Michael Breakspear280754.18
Xintao Hu311813.53
Christine C Guo4383.23