Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

The insula is a brain structure implicated in disparate cognitive, affective, and regulatory functions, including interoceptive awareness, emotional responses, and empathic processes. While classically considered a limbic region, recent evidence from network analysis suggests a critical role for the insula, particularly the anterior division, in high-level cognitive control and attentional processes. The crucial insight and view we present here is of the anterior insula as an integral hub in mediating dynamic interactions between other large-scale brain networks involved in externally oriented attention and internally oriented or self-related cognition. The model we present postulates that the insula is sensitive to salient events, and that its core function is to mark such events for additional processing and initiate appropriate control signals. The anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex form a “salience network” that functions to segregate the most relevant among internal and extrapersonal stimuli in order to guide behavior. Within the framework of our network model, the disparate functions ascribed to the insula can be conceptualized by a few basic mechanisms: (1) bottom–up detection of salient events, (2) switching between other large-scale networks to facilitate access to attention and working memory resources when a salient event is detected, (3) interaction of the anterior and posterior insula to modulate autonomic reactivity to salient stimuli, and (4) strong functional coupling with the anterior cingulate cortex that facilitates rapid access to the motor system. In this manner, with the insula as its integral hub, the salience network assists target brain regions in the generation of appropriate behavioral responses to salient stimuli. We suggest that this framework provides a parsimonious account of insula function in neurotypical adults, and may provide novel insights into the neural basis of disorders of affective and social cognition.

/pdf/saliency-switching-attention-and-control-a-network-model-of-4nzu8lqybn.pdf

Saliency, switching, attention and control: a network model of insula function

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Statistical Parametric Mapping The Analysis Of Functional Brain Images

The phenomenon of empathy entails the ability to share the affective experiences of others. In recent years social neuroscience made considerable progress in revealing the mechanisms that enable a person to feel what another is feeling. The present review provides an in-depth and critical discussion of these findings. Consistent evidence shows that sharing the emotions of others is associated with activation in neural structures that are also active during the first-hand experience of that emotion. Part of the neural activation shared between self- and other-related experiences seems to be rather automatically activated. However, recent studies also show that empathy is a highly flexible phenomenon, and that vicarious responses are malleable with respect to a number of factors--such as contextual appraisal, the interpersonal relationship between empathizer and other, or the perspective adopted during observation of the other. Future investigations are needed to provide more detailed insights into these factors and their neural underpinnings. Questions such as whether individual differences in empathy can be explained by stable personality traits, whether we can train ourselves to be more empathic, and how empathy relates to prosocial behavior are of utmost relevance for both science and society.

/pdf/the-social-neuroscience-of-empathy-51gzjyekxl.pdf

The social neuroscience of empathy

A touching sight: SII/PV activation during the observation and experience of touch.

The discovery of mirror neurons in motor areas of the brain has led many to assume that our ability to understand other people's behaviour partially relies on vicarious activations of motor cortices. This Review focuses the limelight of social neuroscience on a different set of brain regions: the somatosensory cortices. These have anatomical connections that enable them to have a role in visual and auditory social perception. Studies that measure brain activity while participants witness the sensations, actions and somatic pain of others consistently show vicarious activation in the somatosensory cortices. Neuroscientists are starting to understand how the brain adds a somatosensory dimension to our perception of other people.

/pdf/somatosensation-in-social-perception-pdcz7g7f4p.pdf

Somatosensation in social perception

The anthropomorphic brain: the mirror neuron system responds to human and robotic actions.

Many neuroimaging studies of the mirror neuron system (MNS) examine if certain voxels in the brain are shared between action observation and execution (shared voxels, sVx). Unfortunately, finding sVx in standard group analyses is not a guarantee that sVx exist in individual subjects. Using unsmoothed, single-subject analyses we show sVx can be reliably found in all 16 investigated participants. Beside the ventral premotor (BA6/44) and inferior parietal cortex (area PF) where mirror neurons (MNs) have been found in monkeys, sVx were reliably observed in dorsal premotor, supplementary motor, middle cingulate, somatosensory (BA3, BA2, and OP1), superior parietal, middle temporal cortex and cerebellum. For the premotor, somatosensory and parietal areas, sVx were more numerous in the left hemisphere. The hand representation of the primary motor cortex showed a reduced BOLD during hand action observation, possibly preventing undesired overt imitation. This study provides a more detailed description of the location and reliability of sVx and proposes a model that extends the original idea of the MNS to include forward and inverse internal models and motor and sensory simulation, distinguishing the MNS from a more general concept of sVx.

The Observation and Execution of Actions Share Motor and Somatosensory Voxels in all Tested Subjects: Single-Subject Analyses of Unsmoothed fMRI Data

http://dipmat.math.unipa.it/~grim/dott_HD_MphCh/acustic%20mirror%20%20empatia.pdf

Valeria Gazzola

Papers

A touching sight: SII/PV activation during the observation and experience of touch.

Somatosensation in social perception

The anthropomorphic brain: the mirror neuron system responds to human and robotic actions.

The Observation and Execution of Actions Share Motor and Somatosensory Voxels in all Tested Subjects: Single-Subject Analyses of Unsmoothed fMRI Data

Empathy and the somatotopic auditory mirror system in humans