Bilateral Rolandic operculum processing underlying heartbeat awareness reflects changes in bodily self-consciousness

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Psychology

Background:

• Bodily self-consciousness (BSC) relies on processing external (exteroceptive) and internal (interoceptive) bodily signals.
• While exteroceptive processing involves areas like the premotor cortex, interoceptive signals critical for self-awareness are processed in the insula/operculum.
• Previous research suggests integration of these signal types influences BSC.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate where exteroceptive and interoceptive signals are integrated for bodily self-consciousness (BSC).
• To identify brain regions involved in processing integrated bodily signals using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Main Methods:

• Adapted a cardio-visual stimulation protocol to manipulate interoceptive and exteroceptive signals.
• Utilized fMRI to measure neural activity during altered states of BSC.
• Included a classical interoception task to compare neural responses.

Main Results:

• Six brain regions, including the bilateral Rolandic operculum, bilateral supramarginal gyrus, right frontal inferior operculum, and left temporal superior gyrus, showed differential activation during interoception.
• The bilateral Rolandic operculum exhibited the highest selectivity for BSC under cardio-visual manipulation.
• These findings suggest a role for the Rolandic operculum in integrating bodily signals.

Conclusions:

• The Rolandic operculum is proposed to process integrated exteroceptive-interoceptive signals.
• This integration is crucial for both interoceptive awareness and bodily self-consciousness (BSC).
• The study highlights the Rolandic operculum's significance in the neural network underlying self-awareness.