Introduction
Given the array of behavioral processes associated with the insula (e.g., cognition, emotion, interoception), delineating functionally distinct insular sub-regions has been of increasing interest.
Prior parcellation studies utilizing resting-state fMRI data have suggested a functional mosaic along an anterior (cognition) to posterior (sensorimotor) dimension. Here, we employed a task-dependent, data driven approach to delineate insular subdivisions based on coactivation patterns across thousands of neuroimaging studies.
Specifically, we fractionated the human insular cortices by implementing the coactivation based parcellation (CBP) methodology in conjunction with the BrainMap database. We further used the BrainMap taxonomy of metadata terms for decoding the possible functional specialization of CBP generated clusters. We hypothesized that the insular cortex would parcellate into functional subdivisions with differential coactivation and behavioral profiles.