The ‘where’ and the ‘when’ of the BOLD response to pain in the insular cortex. Discussion on amplitudes and latencies

The operculo-insular cortex has been recently pointed out to be the main area of the pain matrix to be involved in the integration of pain intensity. This fMRI study specified the pattern of response to laser stimuli by focusing on this cortical area, by optimizing the temporal sampling and by investigating pain-related differences in the amplitudes and latencies of the BOLD responses. Canonical and temporal derivative hemodynamic response function (HRF) and finite impulse response (FIR) modeling provided consistent results. Amplitude of BOLD response discriminated painful from non-painful conditions in posterior and mid-insular cortices, bilaterally. Pain conditions were characterized by a shortened latency (as compared to non-painful conditions) in the anterior insula. In the functional organization of the insula, these results suggest a double dissociation that can be summarized as the ‘where’ and the ‘when’ of the BOLD response to pain. These results suggest that differences in the amplitude of the BOLD activity in the posterior and in the mid-insular cortices as well as shortened latency of the response in the anterior insula deal with discriminative processes related to painful conditions. [Display omitted] ► Anterior insula and posterior insula have different BOLD pattern encoding for pain. ► Pain is coded as higher amplitude of BOLD response in the posterior insula. ► Pain is coded as shortened latency of BOLD response in the anterior insula. ► Pain is characterized by differences in amplitude and latency of the BOLD response.