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Listening to your heart: interoceptive awareness as a gateway to feeling

Does awareness of the internal state of one's body relate to the conscious experience of feeling? A new imaging study suggests that body awareness mediated by activity in the anterior insular cortex may contribute to the intensity of negative emotions.

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Figure 1: The emotional stimulus is represented in one or more of the brain's sensory processing systems.

Kamal Masuta

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Bechara, A., Naqvi, N. Listening to your heart: interoceptive awareness as a gateway to feeling. Nat Neurosci 7, 102–103 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn0204-102

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