Subjective states induced by intracranial electrical stimulation matches the cytoarchitectonic organization of the human insula
Brain Stimulation November 18, 2023 Anna Duong, Julian Quabs, Aaron Kucyi et al.
Direct electrical stimulation of the human insular cortex in 17 neurosurgical patients with 142 implanted electrodes induced reportable changes in conscious experience at 40% of stimulation sites, spanning visceral/autonomic, anxiety, taste/olfactory, pain/temperature, and somatosensory domains. These subjective responses mapped onto specific microstructural areas defined by cytoarchitectonic parcellation: pain and thermal responses localized to areas lg2/ld2, non-painful somatosensory responses to area ld3, and visceroceptive responses to area Id6. Stimulation of area Id7 in the dorsal anterior insula did not produce reportable subjective changes, despite intracranial EEG recordings showing significant time-locked high-frequency activity. The findings provide a multimodal functional map linking fine-grained microstructural subdivisions to distinct subjective experiences.