Neural correlates of perceived emotions in human insula and amygdala

The emotional status of a speaker is an important non-linguistic cue carried by human voice and can be perceived by a listener in vocal communication. Understanding the neural circuits involved in processing emotions carried by human voice is crucial for understanding the neural basis of social interaction. Previous studies have shown that human insula and amygdala responded more selectively to emotional sounds than non-emotional sounds. However, it is not clear whether the neural selectivity to emotional sounds in these brain structures is determined by the emotion presented by a speaker or by the emotion perceived by a listener. In this study, we recorded intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) responses to emotional human voices while subjects performed emotion recognition tasks. We found that the iEEG responses of Heschls gyrus (HG) and posterior insula were determined by the presented emotion, whereas the iEEG responses of anterior insula and amygdala were driven by the perceived emotion. These results suggest that the anterior insula and amygdala play a crucial role in representing subjectively perceived emotion.