The lateral ﬁssure, when “opened,” reveals some buried cortical tissue; this area is called the insula. This area is responsible for receiving taste sensations, relayed from the brainstem, and olfactory sensation.<br><br><p style="text-align: center;"><img src="@@PLUGINFILE@@/insula.png" alt="Insula" width="429" height="287" class="img-responsive atto_image_button_text-bottom"><br></p><p style="text-align: center;"><br></p><p>The insula is also responsible for the processing of sensation, motor movements and motor planning, verbal memory, motivational reasoning, vocal pitch, humor appreciation, risk taking, the expression of fear and disgust. The right side is responsible for gating affect and impulse, including explosivity, unreasonable responses, and the like.&nbsp;</p><p>The anterior insula has been shown to play a part in the mental conditioning of pain perception—in a sense, the thought pattern associated with pain means that “the worse it gets the worse it gets.” The more the individual catastrophizes, ruminates, worries, and focuses on the pain, the greater the expectation and manifestation of the pain.</p><p>The insular cortex is thought to connect to the sensory inputs from our internal organs. It serves interoception, the perception of information that arises from the center of the body and contributes to the felt sense of being. It also rules proprioception, the sense of how one’s body feels.&nbsp; It also inhibits the firing of the amygdala. Early emotional trauma that interferes with the experience-dependent maturation of the insula and negatively impacts its role in generating an image of one’s physical state (body image), a process that underlies the experiencing of basic emotions (Schore, 2003, p. 202).</p><p>Craig (2004), found that there is expansion of the right anterior insula and adjacent orbitofrontal cortices in therapists and other folks who are empathically attuned.</p><p></p>