Bilateral Rolandic operculum processing underlying heartbeat awareness reflects changes in bodily self‐consciousness

Abstract

Exteroceptive bodily signals (including tactile, proprioceptive and visual signals) are important information contributing to self-consciousness. Moreover, prominent theories proposed that visceral signals about internal bodily states are equally or even more important for self-consciousness. Neuroimaging studies have described several brain regions which process signals related to bodily self-consciousness (BSC) based on the integration of exteroceptive signals (e.g. premotor cortex, angular gyrus, supramarginal gyrus and extrastriate body area), and that another brain region, the insula/operculum which is involved in interoception and interoceptive awareness, processes signals critical for self-awareness. Providing evidence for the integration of exteroceptive and interoceptive bodily signals, recent behavioral experiments have demonstrated that the manipulation of interoceptive (e.g. cardiac) signals, coupled with exteroceptive (e.g. visual) signals, also modulates BSC. Does this integration occur within or outside the structures described above? To this end, we adapted a recently designed protocol that uses cardio-visual stimulation to induce altered states of BSC to fMRI. Additionally, we measured neural activity in a classical interoceptive task. We found six brain regions (bilateral Rolandic operculum, bilateral supramarginal gyrus, right frontal inferior operculum and left temporal superior gyrus) that were activated differently during the interoception task as opposed to a control task. The brain regions which showed the highest selectivity for BSC based on our cardio-visual manipulation were found in the bilateral Rolandic operculum. Given our findings, we propose that the Rolandic operculum processes integrated exteroceptive-interoceptive signals that are necessary for interoceptive awareness as well as BSC.

A Machine Learning Approach to the Differentiation of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Data of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) From a Sedentary Control

“…The Rolandic operculum is the "little lid" of the parietal lobe that folds over the posterior insula. The bilateral Rolandic operculum integrates exteroceptive and interoceptive signals that are necessary for bodily self-consciousness and interoceptive awareness (Wager et al, 2013;Blefari et al, 2017) and is activated for maintenance of vigilant attention during simple tasks such as the stimulus-response 0-back task and discrimination tasks that require continuous decisions about alternative responses (e.g., go vs. no-go tasks) (Langner and Eickhoff, 2013).…”

“…Attention and vigilance were implied from the activation of visual regions that can interact with dorsal attention network nodes in the intraparietal sulcus, and the right temporal parietal junction of the ventral attention network (Vossel et al, 2014). The left Rolandic operculum had the highest coefficient of any region, and was notable for its association with bodily self-consciousness, interoceptive and pain networks (Blefari et al, 2017). The accuracy and 10x cross validation frequency represent the corresponding model accuracy and accuracy after being ran through 10 smaller sub samplings of the initial testing set.…”

Amisulpride and l‐DOPA modulate subcortical brain nuclei connectivity in resting‐state pharmacologic magnetic resonance imaging

“…While the effect was stronger for L-DOPA, than for amisulpride, both contributed to an increase of connectivity, pointing to a possible curvilinear effect of SNc-FC to the operculum/ insula. Apart from its well-known role in reward (Liu, Hairston, Schrier, & Fan, 2011), the operculum plays a role in food reward expectation (Stice, Yokum, Bohon, Marti, & Smolen, 2010) and integrates exteroceptive-interoceptive signals (especially when lying in the scanner) that are necessary for interoceptive awareness (Blefari et al, 2017). The increased coupling of DA mesencephalic nuclei and the insula and operculum points to a L-DOPA mediated switch to interoceptive processing.…”

Audio-tactile and peripersonal space processing around the trunk in human parietal and temporal cortex: an intracranial EEG study

“…However, the IC has been linked to changes in body ownership, self-identification and self-location after multisensory illusions, such as the rubber hand illusion (Blefari et al, 2017;Brozzoli et al, 2012;Grivaz et al, 2017;Tsakiris et al, 2007), the enfacement illusion (Apps et al, 2015), and the full body illusion (Ionta et al, 2014;Park et al, 2016Park et al, , 2017. It is therefore considered a key area for the processing of multisensory cues underlying bodily self-consciousness (Blanke, 2012;Salomon et al, 2016;Seth, 2013).…”