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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title The temporal dynamics of insula activity to disgust and happy facial expressions: a magnetoencephalography study
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Y-H Chen
  • J Dammers
  • F Boers
  • S Leiberg
  • J C Edgar
  • T P L Roberts
  • K Mathiak
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title NeuroImage
Publisher Elsevier
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 1053-8119
Volume 47
Number 4
Page Range 1921 - 1928
Date 2009
Abstract Text The insula has consistently been shown to be involved in processing stimuli that evoke the emotional response of disgust. Recently, its specificity for processing disgust has been challenged and a broader role of the insula in the representation of interoceptive information has been suggested. Studying the temporal dynamics of insula activation during emotional processing can contribute valuable information pertaining to this issue. Few studies have addressed the insula's putative specificity to disgust and the dynamics of its underlying neural processes. In the present study, neuromagnetic responses of 13 subjects performing an emotional continuous performance task (CPT) to faces with disgust, happy, and neutral expressions were obtained. Magnetic field tomography extracted the time course of bilateral insula activities. Right insula activation was stronger to disgust and happy than neutral facial expressions at about 200 ms after stimulus onset. Later only at about 350 ms after stimulus onset the right insula was activated stronger to disgust than happy facial expressions. Thus, the early right insula response reflects activation to emotionally arousing stimuli regardless of valence, and the later right insula response differentiates disgust from happy facial expressions. Behavioral performance but not the insula activity differed between 100 ms and 1000 ms presentation conditions. Present findings support the notion that the insula is involved in the representation of interoceptive information.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.04.093
PubMed ID 19442746
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