Effective Connectivity of Neural Pathways Underlying Disgust by Multivariate Granger Causality Analysis

The disgust system arises phylogenetically in response to dangers to the internal milieu from pathogens and their toxic products. Functional imaging studies have demonstrated that a much wider range of neural structures was involved in triggering disgust reactions. However, less is known regarding how and what neural pathways these neural structures interact. To address this issue, we adopted an effective connectivity based analysis, namely the multivariate Granger causality approach, to explore the causal interactions within these brain networks. Results presented that disgust can induce a wide range of brain activities, such as the insula, the anterior cingulate cortex, the parahippocampus lobe, the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex, the superior occipital gyrus, and the supplementary motor cortex. These brain areas constitute as a whole, with much denser connectivity following disgust stimuli, in comparison with that of the neutral condition. Moreover, the anterior insula, showing multiple casual interactions with limbic and subcortical areas, was implicated as a central hub in organizing multiple information processing in the disgust system.