Nagai M, Kishi K, Kato S
Department of Internal Medicine, Shobara Red Cross Hospital, Hiroshima, Japan.
Eur Psychiatry. 2007 Sep;22(6):387-94. doi: 10.1016/j.eurpsy.2007.02.006. Epub 2007 Apr 9.
The insular cortex is located in the centre of the cerebral hemisphere, having connections with the primary and secondary somatosensory areas, anterior cingulate cortex, amygdaloid body, prefrontal cortex, superior temporal gyrus, temporal pole, orbitofrontal cortex, frontal and parietal opercula, primary and association auditory cortices, visual association cortex, olfactory bulb, hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and motor cortex. Accordingly, dense connections exist among insular cortex neurons. The insular cortex is involved in the processing of visceral sensory, visceral motor, vestibular, attention, pain, emotion, verbal, motor information, inputs related to music and eating, in addition to gustatory, olfactory, visual, auditory, and tactile data. In this article, the literature on the relationship between the insular cortex and neuropsychiatric disorders was summarized following a computer search of the Pub-Med database. Recent neuroimaging data, including voxel based morphometry, PET and fMRI, revealed that the insular cortex was involved in various neuropsychiatric diseases such as mood disorders, panic disorders, PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorders, eating disorders, and schizophrenia. Investigations of functions and connections of the insular cortex suggest that sensory information including gustatory, olfactory, visual, auditory, and tactile inputs converge on the insular cortex, and that these multimodal sensory information may be integrated there.
岛叶皮质位于大脑半球中央，与初级和次级躯体感觉区、前扣带回皮质、杏仁体、前额叶皮质、颞上回、颞极、眶额皮质、额盖和顶盖、初级和联络听觉皮质、视觉联络皮质、嗅球、海马体、内嗅皮质及运动皮质相连。因此，岛叶皮质神经元之间存在密集的连接。岛叶皮质参与内脏感觉、内脏运动、前庭、注意力、疼痛、情绪、言语、运动信息以及与音乐和进食相关的输入信息的处理，此外还包括味觉、嗅觉、视觉、听觉和触觉数据。在本文中，通过对PubMed数据库进行计算机检索，总结了关于岛叶皮质与神经精神疾病之间关系的文献。最近的神经影像学数据，包括基于体素的形态测量学、正电子发射断层扫描（PET）和功能磁共振成像（fMRI），显示岛叶皮质参与了各种神经精神疾病，如情绪障碍、惊恐障碍、创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）、强迫症、进食障碍和精神分裂症。对岛叶皮质功能和连接的研究表明，包括味觉、嗅觉、视觉、听觉和触觉输入在内的感觉信息汇聚于岛叶皮质，并且这些多模态感觉信息可能在那里整合。
