Talk by Sarah A. Stern, PhD

The insular cortex is a multisensory brain region which is involved in many behaviors, including pain, addiction, social behavior, learning & memory, and feeding/metabolism. To date, the gene expression patterns of the insular cortex have not been systematically studied, but it has generally been assumed to be similar to other cortical areas. However, our data indicates that the insular cortex may have some key transcriptomic differences from other cortical areas, and that these insula-specific genes may have important behavioral functions. To probe this, we conducted single cell sequencing of the insular cortex and compared it to somatosensory cortex. We find that indeed the insular cortex has a distinct transcriptomic makeup compared to somatosensory cortex. We then investigated the function of two insula-specific genes in complex feeding behaviors. Probing the function of these insula-specific cell-types reveals important insights into the functions of the insular cortex vis-a-vis complex motivated behaviors, in particular salience detection and internal state sensing.