Neural Mechanisms as Putative Targets for Warfighter Resilience and Optimal Performance - Neurotechnology in National Security and Defense - page 58

In turn, a more adaptive adjustment is thought to result in a more positive view of
the world and that this capacity helps maintain their homeostasis. This positive bias
during emotion perception may provide the rose-colored glasses that resilient indi-
viduals use to interpret the world and achieve effective ways to bounce back from
adversity and maintain wellness.
In the model of optimal performance in extreme environments, we started with
the notion that these environments exert profound interoceptive effects, which are
processed via the interoceptive system described above. The interoceptive system
provides this information to systems that (1) monitor value and salience (orbitofron-
tal cortex and amygdala); (2) are important for evaluating reward (ventral striatum/
extended amygdala); and (3) are critical for cognitive control processes (anterior
cingulate). Moreover, the more anterior the representation of the interoceptive state
within the insular cortex, the more “textured,” multimodal, and complex is the infor-
mation that is being processed due to the diverse cortical afferents to the mid- and
anterior insula. We hypothesized that the anterior insula, possibly in conjunction
with the anterior cingulate, not only receives interoceptive information but also is
able to generate a predictive model, which we have termed the body prediction error,
which provides the individual with a signal of how the body will feel, similar to
the as if loop in the Damasio (1994) somatic marker model. In this formulation,
Damasio's theory extends the James Lang theory of emotion (Lang 1994) because
the insula can instantiate body sensation without necessarily receiving peripheral
inputs. The interoceptive information is thus “contextualized,” that is, brought in
relation to other ongoing affective, cognitive, or experiential processes, in relation to
the homeostatic state of the individual, and is used to initiate new or modify ongo-
ing actions aimed at maintaining the individual's homeostatic state. In this fashion
interoceptive stimuli can generate an urge to act.
The neuroscience approach to understanding optimal performance in extreme
environments has several advantages over traditional descriptive approaches. First,
once the role of specific neural substrates is identified, they can be targeted for
interventions. Second, studies of specific neural substrates involved in performance
in extreme environments can be used to determine what cognitive and affective
processes are important for modulating optimal performance. Third, quantitative
assessment of the contribution of different neural systems to performance in extreme
environments could be used as indicators of training status or preparedness. The
observation that levels of resilience modulate the insular cortex and amygdala is
a first step in bringing neuroscience approaches to a better understanding of what
makes individuals perform differently when exposed to extreme environments and
how to build resilience.
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New York Academy of Sciences 935:107-117.