{"id":809614,"date":"2026-10-21T20:52:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T20:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809614\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T20:52:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T20:52:12","slug":"huge-mapping-study-reveals-how-your-brain-tracks-what-your-body-is-feeling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/809614\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge mapping study reveals how your brain tracks what your body is feeling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The region called the insula is buried deep beneath the brain\u2019s wrinkled surface (artist\u2019s illustration).Credit: Alexander Leemans\/UMC Utrecht\/Science Photo Library<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Scientists have mapped one of the most mysterious parts of the human brain in unprecedented detail1<\/a>. Their results detail how this region, the insular cortex or insula, is organised to support the brain\u2019s processing of bodily sensations such as pain<\/a>. The mapping also details a pathway that allows for the cortex \u2014 the seat of higher-order cognition \u2014 to work with the insula to affect bodily perceptions.<\/p>\n

One region of the insula is responsible for the feeling of pain in certain parts of the body. Another region generates sensations, such as nausea<\/a>, felt by the internal organs. A third region, at the front of the insula, \u2018talks\u2019 to other brain areas involved in cognition and emotion, suggesting it influences not only sensations, but also how the brain interprets them.<\/p>\n

Contrary to previous thinking, the insula is \u201cnot just reading the body. It is partly influencing the story about how the body should be felt,\u201d says study co-author Josef Parvizi, a physician-scientist at Stanford University in California.<\/p>\n

The study is \u201cquite a feat\u201d, says Lucina Uddin, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. It\u2019s also one of the most comprehensive studies on the insula and how it produces bodily sensations, she adds.<\/p>\n

The findings were published today in Nature.<\/p>\n

Buried in the brain<\/p>\n

The insula has been notoriously difficult to study in detail because it\u2019s located deep in the brain. Previous studies have suggested that this hard-to-reach region is involved in receiving signals \u2014 such as pain or pressure \u2014 from various parts of the body, then processing them into sensations that we experience. But most research on the human insula has relied on brain-imaging techniques to capture what happens in the insula when various sensations arise, Parvizi says.<\/p>\n

To build a more detailed picture, Parvizi and his colleagues needed to find a way to send electrical signals to various parts of the insula in people and assess the bodily sensations that occur as a result. But implanting electrodes deep in the brains of healthy people would be unethical. So, the researchers turned to 87 people who\u2019d had electrodes implanted in their brains for medical reasons.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The brain\u2019s map of the body is surprisingly stable \u2014 even after a limb is lost<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In experiments that spanned more than a decade, Parvizi and his colleagues sent electrical currents through the electrodes into a variety of sites in the participants\u2019 insulas.<\/p>\n

Stimulating the rear of the insula produced pain, heat and other sensations \u2014 including tingling and numbness \u2014 in specific areas of the participants\u2019 bodies, such as the arm or leg. Meanwhile, participants experienced more \u2018visceral\u2019 sensations, including nausea, pressure and feelings of fullness in their chest, when the researchers sent electrical currents to the middle of the insula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The region called the insula is buried deep beneath the brain\u2019s wrinkled surface (artist\u2019s illustration).Credit: Alexander Leemans\/UMC Utrecht\/Science…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,4230,4231,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-809614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-humanities-and-social-sciences","tag-multidisciplinary","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}