Sergio Duca

TL;DR: The authors' findings document two major complementary networks involving the ventral-anterior and dorsal-posterior insula: one network links the anterior insula to the middle and inferior temporal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, and is primarily related to limbic regions which play a role in emotional aspects, and support the use of resting state functional analysis to investigate connectivity in the living human brain.

TL;DR: This work indicates, for the first time, that some blocks of the anterior insula play the role of hubs between the anterior and the posterior insulae, as confirmed by their activation in several different paradigms, and supports the view that the network to which the anteriorinsula belongs is related to saliency detection.

TL;DR: A relatively simple “one-step” border detection and ROI estimation procedure employing the fuzzy c-mean clustering algorithm that revealed a complex pattern of functional connectivity where the two previously detected insular clusters are subdivided into several other networks, some of which are not commonly associated with the insular cortex.

TL;DR: A functional network of brain areas that mark the spontaneous component of NP is characterized for the first time, indicating that pain is the result of aberrant default mode functional connectivity.

TL;DR: The combined rsFC and MACM analyses show that spontaneous activity in NAcc predicts activity in regions implicated in reward circuitries, including orbitomedial prefrontal cortex, globus pallidus, thalamus, midbrain, amygdala, and insula, confirming the key role of NAcc in the mesocorticolimbic system.