Insula

The insula is the primary sensory area in the neocortex that receives interoceptive and somatosensory signals associated with taste, touch, pain, etc. It projects extensively to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) to drive representations of desired outcomes in the goal-driven Rubicon framework. Given the core survival-relevant nature of this sensory information, it plays a critical role in emotion, particularly in the conscious awareness of internal body states, which otherwise are extensively processed in subcortical areas that lack the bidirectional connectivity of the neocortex, and thus are not part of our subjective states of awareness.