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Epilepsy and Ecstatic Experiences: The Role of the Insula.

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Picard, Fabienne 
Bartolomei, Fabrice 

Abstract

Ecstatic epilepsy is a rare form of focal epilepsy in which the aura (beginning of the seizures) consists of a blissful state of mental clarity/feeling of certainty. Such a state has also been described as a "religious" or mystical experience. While this form of epilepsy has long been recognized as a temporal lobe epilepsy, we have accumulated evidence converging toward the location of the symptomatogenic zone in the dorsal anterior insula during the 10 last years. The neurocognitive hypothesis for the genesis of a mental clarity is the suppression of the interoceptive prediction errors and of the unexpected surprise associated with any incoming internal or external signal, usually processed by the dorsal anterior insula. This mimics a perfect prediction of the world and induces a feeling of certainty. The ecstatic epilepsy is thus an amazing model for the role of anterior insula in uncertainty and surprise.

Description

Keywords

active inference, anterior insula, certainty, ecstatic aura, ecstatic epilepsy, interoception, mental clarity, predictive coding

Journal Title

Brain Sci

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2076-3425
2076-3425

Volume Title

11

Publisher

MDPI AG