Cortical and subcortical mapping of the human allostatic–interoceptive system using 7 Tesla fMRI
The brain continuously anticipates the body's energetic needs and prepares to meet them before they arise-a process called allostasis. To support allostasis, the brain continually models the body's sensory state, a process known as interoception. Here we replicate and extend a large-scale system that supports allostasis and interoception in the human brain using ultrahigh precision 7 Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (n = 90), improving precision in subgenual and pregenual anterior cingulate topography and expanding brainstem nuclei mapping. Our functional connectivity analyses provide corroborating evidence for more than 96% of the anatomical connections documented in nonhuman animal tract-tracing studies. This system also includes regions of dense intrinsic connectivity throughout the system, some of which were identified previously as part of the backbone of neural communication across the brain. These results reinforce the existing evidence for a whole-brain system that supports the modeling and regulation of the body's internal milieu.
Authors
- Jordan E. Theriault (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4680-0172)
- Lawrence L. Wald (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8278-6307)
- Tor Dessart Wager (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1936-5574)
- Kent M. Lee (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6689-142X)
- Ajay B. Satpute (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0227-0816)
- Kieran McVeigh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3572-3674)
- Philip Deming (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0512-9263)
- Philip A. Kragel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9463-6381)
- Danlei Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4903-1222)
- Lisa Feldman Barrett (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4478-2051)
- Ludger Hartley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3349-4620)
- Jiahe Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7520-074X)
- Marta Bianciardi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9606-6853)
- Tara Srirangarajan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7435-6347)
- Karen S. Quigley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8844-990X)
- Susan Whitfield‐Gabrieli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9460-167X)
Institutions
- Dartmouth College (US)
- Northeastern University (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Emory University (US)
- Harvard University Press (US)
- Massachusetts General Hospital (US)
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging (US)
- Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (US)
- Stanford University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2025-10-23
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-025-02087-x
- Citations
- 11
- Primary Topic
- Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 15.74
Funders
- National Science Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- National Institute on Aging
- National Institute of Mental Health
- National Cancer Institute
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
- Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences
- Army Research Laboratory