Human secondary somatosensory cortex is involved in the processing of somatosensory rare stimuli: An fMRI study

A time-varying source connectivity approach to reveal human somatosensory information processing

“…This reciprocal processing may be particularly relevant in the processing of novel/salient sensory information (please refer to the experimental design), which would elicit the involvement of sensory, affective, and emotional processes that must be integrated to generate a coherent percept of sensory information. While the SII is believed to perform higher-order functions including sensorimotor integration, integration of information from the two halves of the body, attention, learning and memory (Chen et al, 2008;Dijkerman and de Haan, 2007;Garcia-Larrea et al, 1995), CC is thought to serve as a central station for processing top-down and bottom-up tasks, assigning appropriate control to other areas in the brain, and/or assessing the salience of emotion and motivational information (Allman et al, 2001;Bush et al, 2000). The combined activation of these brain regions in a reciprocal manner could contribute to particular functions of higher-order cognitive processes, such as the construction of an integrated, sensory perceptual environment, the directing of attention to salient features of that environment, and the selection of those features for entry into awareness (Knudsen, 2007;Mesulam, 1998).…”

Insula-specific responses induced by dental pain. A proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy study

“…Among these, the insular cortex is described as one of the most consistently activated structures and seems to play a pivotal role within the cortical pain circuitry. Hence, the significance of the insular cortex as a core structure in pain processing has been established [1,9,[11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

Modulation of somatosensory evoked magnetic fields by intensity of interfering stimuli in human somatosensory cortex: An MEG study

“…S1 is known to be mainly involved in discriminative aspects of sensory information, such as intensity or location of the stimulus Hlushchuk et al, 2004;Jousmäki and Forss, 1998;Lin et al, 2003;Torquati et al, 2002), whereas S2 is known to perform higher-order cognitive functions, such as attention (Burton et al, 1999;Chen et al, 2010;Mima et al, 1998), tactile learning and memory Ettlinger, 1976, 1978), decision-making (Romo et al, 2002), and integration of somatosensory inputs with opposite properties, e.g., painful and nonpainful stimuli (Chen et al, 2008;Torquati et al, 2003).…”