Associated Functions
- Somatosensory
- Olfaction and taste (15933393, 14622239, 10495443, many articles)
- Memory
- Motor
- Integration of limb and field coordinates (9125463)
- Language
- Other
- Expression of fear response (11276236, 17123557)
- Error awareness (17185003)
- Motivated reasoning (17069484)
- Response to reward fluctuation in decision making (16596979)
- Response to informative feedback (motivation/reward processing) (16490307)
- Risk-taking in decision processing (12948701)
- Inhibition within an emotional context (16480897)
- Autonomic arousal when watching emotional content (12784931)
- Making emotional judgments (Right) (11467919)
- Perceiving expressions of disgust (9333238)
- Anticipatory deployment of attention in visual motion task (15275908)
- Reproduction of nonlyrical tune (15068914)
- Pitch judgment (8158246)
- Executive processing (15053955)
- Humor appreciation (15006673)
- Strategy change response (14670576)
- Calculation (11034863)
*These
areas were not included in Brodmann's original map of the human brain, but are
analagous to the location of the monkey's insular cortex.
Reviewer's note
The
insula represents one of the most interesting and under-studied
cortical areas. From the cytoarchitectonic point of view, it is quite
heterogeneous: agranular in the anterior part and granular in the
posterior region. It receives information from the ventral medial
nucleus of the thalamus, the ventral posterior inferior nucleus of
the thalamus, and the central nucleus of the amygdala. Reciprocal
connections exist between the primary somatosensory cortex and the
insula. The wide diversity of functions observed with fMRI studies
(pain, temperature, touch, olfaction, taste, language, memory,
emotion, etc) emphasizes its tremendous heterogeneity. Evidently,
further research is required to pinpoint the participation of
different insula areas in so diverse brain networks.
fMRI studies have significantly contributed and continue contributing
to our understanding of the insula functions.