Interoception Part II: Brain's perspective

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Interoception Part I: Practitioner's perspective


Please see this link, NOTES RE: INTEROCEPTION, for a reasonably thorough go-through of Craig's video in Sweden, posted two years ago by Susanne Karlsson, How do you feel? Lecture by Bud Craig. 


It contains short transcriptions (with screenshots) of what I think are main topics pertinent to my own understanding (i.e., from a human primate social grooming standpoint) of the insular cortex and by extension, the afferent ascending and modulating system, or what I like to call "the critter brain."


The main topics I selected are as follows: 

1. SOMATOSENSORY CORTEX DOES NOT PROCESS TEMPERATURE SENSATION 

2. TEMPERATURE SENSATION (AND MUCH MORE) IS PROCESSED BY INSULAR CORTEX 

3. TRUST IS BASED ON FACE RECOGNITION 

4. OTHER INSULAR CORTEX FUNCTION*

5. MORE ABOUT LAMINA I AND LAMINA V 

6. ABOUT VMpo 

7. SOMATOTOPY MAKES EMBRYOLOGIC SENSE 

8. CENTRAL PAIN SYNDROME   

9. ABOUT EMPATHY 

10. INSULAR CORTEX AS GEARBOX FOR MAPPING/INTEGRATION OF INNER AND OUTER AFFERENT INPUT - INTERO and EXTEROCEPTION 

11. INSULAR CORTEX, ANTERIOR CINGULATE CORTEX, AND VON ECONOMO NEURONS 

12. INSULAR CORTEX AS INNER TIMEKEEPER AND SALIENCE CONFERRER 

13. RIGHT/LEFT ASYMMETRY OF INSULAR CORTEX

*(e.g., nociception, which Craig insists on calling "pain") 


I also added/included all his papers, links to the abstracts and to full access papers whenever possible, as provided by a PubMed search. 


I consider his work crucial for understanding how nociceptive afferent input from the body (i.e., as one  type of interoception) is handled by the brain. The idea of insula as a sort of "self" constructer was new to me, as was the idea of it being a camera taking successive "stills" which are sped up or slowed down according to salience. His explanation of the inherent asymmetry of the insular system on each side was novel as well, and the correspondance this has with sympathetic and parasympathetic inputs/ vagus nerve asymmetry. 


I don't want to leave out the cerebellum:  Calming Effects of Deep Touch Pressure in Patients with Autistic Disorder, College Students, and Animals by Temple Grandin. (Carol Lynn Chevrier found and posted this to Facebook - thank you.)