Functional Fractionation of the Cingulo-opercular Network: Alerting Insula and Updating Cingulate

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neuroimaging

Background:

• The anterior insula (AI) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) are implicated in diverse cognitive and affective functions.
• A prominent theory suggests their widespread activation stems from transiently capturing attention via salient stimuli.

Purpose of the Study:

• To functionally dissociate the roles of the AI and dACC.
• To test the hypothesis that AI and dACC engagement reflects transient attention capture by salient stimuli.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed.
• Experiment 1: Compared AI and dACC responses to emotion-laden vs. emotion-neutral salient movie events.
• Experiment 2: Assessed responses to salient events requiring task set maintenance vs. updating.

Main Results:

• The AI showed sustained responses to affective events but transient responses to neutral events, contradicting the transient attention capture account.
• The dACC exhibited transient responses irrespective of event type.
• The AI signaled behaviorally relevant events, whereas the dACC was associated with updating attention settings.

Conclusions:

• The AI and dACC play distinct roles in processing salient events.
• AI signals the presence of behaviorally significant events.
• dACC is involved in updating internal attention settings in response to these events.