TY - JOUR T1 - Evidence for a Large-Scale Brain System Supporting Allostasis and Interoception in Humans JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/098970 SP - 098970 AU - Ian R. Kleckner AU - Jiahe Zhang AU - Alexandra Touroutoglou AU - Lorena Chanes AU - Chenjie Xia AU - W. Kyle Simmons AU - Karen S. Quigley AU - Bradford C. Dickerson AU - Lisa Feldman Barrett Y1 - 2017/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/01/10/098970.abstract N2 - Large-scale intrinsic brain systems have been identified for exteroceptive senses (e.g., sight, hearing, touch). We introduce an analogous system for representing sensations from within the body, called interoception, and demonstrate its relation to regulating peripheral systems in the body, called allostasis. Employing the recently introduced Embodied Predictive Interoception Coding (EPIC) model, we used tract-tracing studies of macaque monkeys, followed by two intrinsic functional magnetic resonance imaging samples (N = 280 and N = 270) to evaluate the existence of an intrinsic allostatic/interoceptive system in the human brain. Another sample (N = 41) allowed us to evaluate the convergent validity of the hypothesized allostatic/interoceptive system by showing that individuals with stronger connectivity between system hubs performed better on an implicit index of interoceptive ability related to autonomic fluctuations. Implications include novel insights for the brain’s functional architecture, dissolving the artificial boundary between mind and body, and unifying mental and physical illness. ER -