{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,15]],"date-time":"2026-10-15T04:44:47Z","timestamp":1792039487996,"version":"4.4.0"},"reference-count":28,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"11","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,22]],"date-time":"2021-10-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1634860800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Brain Sciences"],"abstract":"<jats:p>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 \u201creligious\u201d 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.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/brainsci11111384","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,22]],"date-time":"2021-10-22T09:18:09Z","timestamp":1634894289000},"page":"1384","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":19,"title":["Epilepsy and Ecstatic Experiences: The Role of the Insula"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Fabienne","family":"Picard","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University Hospitals and Medical School of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2308-2603","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Peter","family":"Bossaerts","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Finance, University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia"},{"name":"Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 9DD, UK"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fabrice","family":"Bartolomei","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Clinical Neurophysiology and Epileptology Department, Timone Hospitals, 13360 Marseille, France"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1673","DOI":"10.1093\/brain\/113.6.1673","article-title":"Experiential phenomena of temporal lobe epilepsy. 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