INSULAR CORTEX and BODILY AWARENESS
Recent imaging results have identified the insular cortex as a central player in the experience of bodily self-awareness, like:
- the awareness that our arms and legs belong to us and not to someone else. Though this sounds silly, some stroke patients with damage in this area are convinced their limb(s) do not belong to them and may even attribute them to other people;
- triggering one’s sense of disgust to the sight of contamination, smells, and mutilation, even when just imagining the experience;
- pleasurable memories creating urges for drugs, even if actual drug levels in the body remain constant;
- the degree of preference for a pleasurable sensation;
- pain when looking at images of painful events, and feeling them as if it is happening in one’s own body;
- feeling sensations of a past experience, despite the fact that the energetic residue of that experience that was stored in the body was fully released.
