Andrew Huberman

The posterior insula is mainly concerned with what's going on with your somatic experience.

How do you feel internally?

Mainly batches information into yum, I want to keep doing this or approach this thing, or continue down some path of movement or eating or staying in a temperature environment, et cetera, or yuck, I need to get out of here.

I don't want any more of this.

I don't want to keep doing this.

This is painful or aversive or stressful.

In your posterior insula,

you have a very interesting population of very large neurons.

These are exceptionally large neurons called van Economo neurons.

Neurons that are, again, unbeknownst to most neuroscientists, and they seem uniquely enriched in humans.

Why is that interesting?

Well, these van Economo neurons have the unique property of integrating our

about our body movements, our sense of pain and discomfort, and can drive motivational processes that allow us to lean into discomfort and indeed to overcome any discomfort if we decide that the discomfort that we are experiencing is good for us or directed toward a specific goal.

And then there's the other really interesting aspect of these van Economo neurons, which is that these van Economo neurons are connected to a number of different brain areas

that can shift our internal state from one of so-called sympathetic activation, so this is a pattern of alertness and even stress, sometimes even panic, but typically alertness and stress, to one of so-called parasympathetic activation.

to one of relaxation.

Oftentimes you'll hear that stretching should be done by relaxing into the stretch.

Well, what does it actually mean to relax into the stretch?

Well, these van Economo neurons sit at this junction where they're able to evaluate what's going on inside our body and

allow us to access neural circuitries by which we can shift our relative level of alertness down a bit or our relative level of stress down a bit and thereby to increase so-called parasympathetic activation and to literally