The region called the insula is buried deep beneath the brain’s wrinkled surface (artist’s illustration). Credit: Alexander Leemans/UMC Utrecht/Science Photo Library

Scientists have mapped one of the most mysterious parts of the human brain in unprecedented detail 1 . Their results detail how this region, the insular cortex or insula, is organised to support the brain’s processing of bodily sensations such as pain . The mapping also details a pathway that allows for the cortex — the seat of higher-order cognition — to work with the insula to affect bodily perceptions.

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 , felt by the internal organs. A third region, at the front of the insula, ‘talks’ to other brain areas involved in cognition and emotion, suggesting it influences not only sensations, but also how the brain interprets them.

Contrary to previous thinking, the insula is “not just reading the body.…