Island bark

The Island bark, also Insula, Insular lobe or Island rag called, is one of the most mysterious parts of the human brain and hardly bigger than a 2 euro piece. From an evolutionary point of view, this part of the human brain is ancient and fulfills many different tasks, not all of which have yet been discovered.

What is the island bark?

Even if you could look at the brain from the outside, you would hardly see the insular bark. It lies hidden in the depth of the cerebral groove (sulcus lateralis cerebri) and is covered by the frontal lobe, parietal lobe and temporal lobe.

Anatomy & structure

As the cortex of the endbrain, the insular cortex consists of gray matter with several layers of nerve cell bodies. It is connected to the limbic system. To date, science has not really succeeded in deciphering the tasks that the insular bark has to fulfill.

But it is now clear that she is at least partly responsible for many feelings. It is involved in the ability to smell and taste and at the same time in the evaluation of what is tasted and smelled. Whether something turns us on or off, makes us happy or disgusted, the island bark most likely plays a very important role. But far beyond that, the insular cortex is likely to receive and transmit signals from all internal organs. Are we sick or dizzy, are we hungry or thirsty, do we experience difficulty breathing, are our bladders full, are we hot or cold?

The insula participates in all of these (unconscious) feelings. But that's still not enough. Due to its connection to the limbic system, the insular cortex is interconnected reciprocally with the thalamus and the amygdala and thus it also has an influence on our consciousness and our emotions. It is directly or indirectly (in which way it is not yet clear) how we evaluate situations emotionally. Empathy, compassion, motherly love, even the orgasm are controlled in a broader sense by the insula, as well as disgust, disgust, rejection. Some researchers therefore also call this part of the brain the "island of the soul". But it has also been proven that the insular cortex is involved in speech production.

Function & tasks

Brain research is a very complex and very difficult task. After all, its task is not just to understand how the brain works as an organ, which is also very complicated. In addition, it must also try to find out how the connection between brain activity and our thinking and feeling actually works.

If we realize that an estimated 100 billion nerve cells communicate with one another via 100 billion synapses in the brain, then the extent of the difficulty in understanding or even being able to influence these processes becomes clear. Nevertheless, there are already promising approaches today. In this way, brain researchers can measure which parts of our brain are particularly active under which conditions and to what extent they are used. There are various imaging methods such as magnetoencephalography. Sensors measure the electrical activities of the nerve cells.

They are converted into images and so it can be seen how strong the activity of certain brain areas is under certain circumstances. And this is exactly how neuroscientists were able to find out something about the work of the insular cortex.For example, neuroscientists have shown in studies with imaging methods that the inula is active, not only when it comes to its own pain but also when pain is observed. This is proof that she is involved in compassion, one of the most human skills of all. It has also been shown on the basis of various activity patterns that the front part of the insular cortex recognizes what feelings we are having, while the rear part can distinguish how strong the feeling is, for example where something hurts and what kind of pain it is .

But there is also research into how people behave when the island's bark has been damaged by illnesses and accidents. In patients with an injury to the inula, for example, a partial but also complete disturbance of the noise allocation (auditory agnosia) has been found. For example, other patients have lost their sense of smell or taste after a stroke in the area of ​​the island's bark, or they have lost the feeling of hunger and thirst. A patient who was previously a heavy smoker completely lost the pleasure of smoking due to damage to the insular cortex.

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Diseases

If we now have some basic knowledge of what the insular cortex controls, then that gives clues as to which diseases changes in the insula can be associated with.

A whole range of mental and physical health disorders are possible here. For example, autism, addictions, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and depression could all point to an insular cortex disorder. There is already a lot of research on this topic. For example, scientists have examined autistic mice and found that there was a disproportion between inhibitory and excitatory impulses in the insular cortex.

This disorder could even be partially remedied with medication. The mice showed less stereotypical behavior, their social behavior improved, and they interacted much more. Of course, there is still a long way to go before this research reveals ways of treating diseases in humans, but the path is leading in that direction.