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Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access published online on June 8, 2009
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, doi:10.1093/scan/nsp018
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© The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Leaving a bad taste in your mouth but not in my insula

Elisabeth A. H. von dem Hagen1, John D. Beaver1, Michael P. Ewbank1, Jill Keane1, Luca Passamonti1,2, Andrew D. Lawrence3 and Andrew J. Calder1

1MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK,2Institute of Neurological Sciences, National Research Council, Piano Lago di Mangone, 87050, Cosenza, Italy and 3Wales Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Tower Building, Park Place, CF10 3AT, UK

Previous research has implicated regions of anterior insula/frontal operculum in processing conspecific facial expressions of disgust. It has been suggested however that there are a variety of disgust facial expression components which relate to the disgust-eliciting stimulus. The nose wrinkle is predominantly associated with irritating or offensive smells, the mouth gape and tongue extrusion with distaste and oral irritation, while a broader range of disgust elicitors including aversive interpersonal contacts and certain moral offenses are associated primarily with the upper lip curl. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we show that activity in the anterior insula/frontal operculum is seen only in response to canonical disgust faces, exhibiting the nose wrinkle and upper lip curl, and not in response to distaste facial expressions, exhibiting a mouth gape and tongue protrusion. Canonical disgust expressions also result in activity in brain regions linked to social cognition more broadly, including dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, temporo-parietal junction and superior temporal sulcus. We interpret these differences in relation to the relative functional and communicative roles of the different disgust expressions and suggest a significant role for appraisal processes in the insula activation to facial expressions of disgust.

Keywords: disgust; fMRI; emotion; insula; distaste

Correspondence should be addressed to Elisabeth A. H. von dem Hagen, Medical Research Council, Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 7EF, UK. E-mail: Elisabeth.vondemhagen{at}mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk.

Received January 9, 2009. Accepted April 22, 2009.


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