Critchley Hugo D, Wiens Stefan, Rotshtein Pia, Ohman Arne, Dolan Raymond J
Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, University College London, and Autonomic Unit, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College London Hospitals, UK.
Nat Neurosci. 2004 Feb;7(2):189-95. doi: 10.1038/nn1176. Epub 2004 Jan 18.
Influential theories of human emotion argue that subjective feeling states involve representation of bodily responses elicited by emotional events. Within this framework, individual differences in intensity of emotional experience reflect variation in sensitivity to internal bodily responses. We measured regional brain activity by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during an interoceptive task wherein subjects judged the timing of their own heartbeats. We observed enhanced activity in insula, somatomotor and cingulate cortices. In right anterior insular/opercular cortex, neural activity predicted subjects' accuracy in the heartbeat detection task. Furthermore, local gray matter volume in the same region correlated with both interoceptive accuracy and subjective ratings of visceral awareness. Indices of negative emotional experience correlated with interoceptive accuracy across subjects. These findings indicate that right anterior insula supports a representation of visceral responses accessible to awareness, providing a substrate for subjective feeling states.
有影响力的人类情感理论认为，主观感受状态涉及对由情感事件引发的身体反应的表征。在此框架内，情感体验强度的个体差异反映了对内部身体反应的敏感度差异。我们在一项内感受任务中通过功能磁共振成像（fMRI）测量了大脑区域活动，在此任务中受试者判断自己心跳的时间。我们观察到脑岛、躯体运动和扣带回皮质的活动增强。在右前脑岛/岛盖皮质，神经活动预测了受试者在心跳检测任务中的准确性。此外，同一区域的局部灰质体积与内感受准确性和内脏觉知的主观评分均相关。负面情感体验指标在受试者中与内感受准确性相关。这些发现表明，右前脑岛支持一种可被意识到的内脏反应表征，为主观感受状态提供了基础。
