title: Once you feel it, you see it: insula and sensory-motor contribution to visual awareness for fearful bodies in parietal neglect.
abstract: The interplay between the neural mechanisms of visual awareness and those involved in emotion processing and the mapping of related somatic changes remains unclear. To address this issue we studied one patient with visual extinction following right parietal damage, in a combined behavioral, psychophysiological and neuroimaging experiment. Patient M.P. was presented with neutral and fearful bodily expressions, either unilaterally in the left (LVF) or right visual field (RVF), or in both visual fields simultaneously. Fearful expressions presented in the left visual field simultaneously with neutral bodies in the RVF were detected more often than left-side neutral bodies. Signal detection analysis showed that the preferential access of fearful bodies to visual awareness is related to higher perceptual sensitivity for these stimuli during attentional competition. Pupil dilation, which indexes autonomic arousal, increased for fearful more than for neutral bodies. Moreover, dilation for extinguished fearful bodies was bigger than for consciously perceived fearful bodies. This decoupling between (increased) arousal and (lack of) conscious visual experience argues against a direct relationship between visual awareness of emotional signals and peripheral changes. Neuroimaging results showed that fearful bodies activated the left amygdala and extrastriate cortex when consciously perceived as well as when extinguished. Critically, however, conscious perception of fearful bodies was uniquely associated with activity in the anterior insula, somatosensory, motor and premotor cortex (PMC), and the cerebellum. This suggests that the integration between peripheral arousal and the moment-to-moment mapping at the central neural level of these bodily changes is critical for the conscious visual experience of emotional signals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Torino, Italy; Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, CoRPS - Center of Research on Psychology in Somatic Diseases - Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Electronic address: marco.tamietto@unito.it.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tamietto
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Torino, Italy; GCS-fMRI, Koelliker Hospital, Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cauda
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Torino, Italy; Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, CoRPS - Center of Research on Psychology in Somatic Diseases - Tilburg University, The Netherlands; GCS-fMRI, Koelliker Hospital, Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Alessia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Celeghin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Torino, Italy; GCS-fMRI, Koelliker Hospital, Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Diano
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Torino, Italy; GCS-fMRI, Koelliker Hospital, Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Tommaso
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuromotor Rehabilitation, Presidio Major, Fondazione S. Maugeri, Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Federico M
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Cossa
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Katiuscia
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sacco
authors.affiliation: GCS-fMRI, Koelliker Hospital, Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Duca
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Torino, Italy; GCS-fMRI, Koelliker Hospital, Torino, Italy.
authors.forename: Giuliano C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Geminiani
authors.affiliation: Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, CoRPS - Center of Research on Psychology in Somatic Diseases - Tilburg University, The Netherlands; Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: de Gelder
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000679:Amygdala / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001364:Awareness / Q000502:physiology*; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D004644:Emotions; D005239:Fear; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000293:injuries*; D010468:Perceptual Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Attention; Emotion perception; Interoception; Visual awareness; Visual extinction