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Insular cortex and neuropsychiatric disorders: A review of recent literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2007

M. Nagai ,
K. Kishi  and
S. Kato
M. Nagai*
Affiliation:
Department of Internal Medicine, Shobara Red Cross Hospital, Hiroshima, Japan
K. Kishi
Affiliation:
Department of Medical Informatics, Jichi Medical School, Tochigi, Japan
S. Kato
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Jichi Medical School, Tochigi, Japan
*
∗Corresponding author. Department of Internal Medicine, Shobara Red Cross Hospital, 2710 Nishihonmachi, 727 0013 Shobara City, Hroshima Prefecture, Japan. Tel.: +81 824 72 3111; fax: +81 824 72 3576. E-mail address: nagai10m@r6.dion.ne.jp (M. Nagai).
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Abstract

The insular cortex is located in the centre of the cerebral hemisphere, having connections with the primary and secondary somatosensory areas, anterior cingulate cortex, amygdaloid body, prefrontal cortex, superior temporal gyrus, temporal pole, orbitofrontal cortex, frontal and parietal opercula, primary and association auditory cortices, visual association cortex, olfactory bulb, hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and motor cortex. Accordingly, dense connections exist among insular cortex neurons. The insular cortex is involved in the processing of visceral sensory, visceral motor, vestibular, attention, pain, emotion, verbal, motor information, inputs related to music and eating, in addition to gustatory, olfactory, visual, auditory, and tactile data. In this article, the literature on the relationship between the insular cortex and neuropsychiatric disorders was summarized following a computer search of the Pub-Med database. Recent neuroimaging data, including voxel based morphometry, PET and fMRI, revealed that the insular cortex was involved in various neuropsychiatric diseases such as mood disorders, panic disorders, PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorders, eating disorders, and schizophrenia. Investigations of functions and connections of the insular cortex suggest that sensory information including gustatory, olfactory, visual, auditory, and tactile inputs converge on the insular cortex, and that these multimodal sensory information may be integrated there.

Keywords

Insular cortexAffective disordersAnxiety disordersSchizophreniafMRIPET
Type
Review
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 22 , Issue 6 , September 2007 , pp. 387 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © Elsevier Masson SAS 2007

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