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The human insular cortex is involved in a wide range of functions including motor control, language, and homeostatic regulation. Little is known, however, how these functions are topographically organized in the insular cortex and how they are functionally related to the amygdala, which is anatomically connected to the insular cortex. We have investigated these questions by conducting an activation likelihood estimate (ALE) meta-analysis of previously published neuroimaging studies reporting insula effects. We find auditory and language tasks to preferentially activate an area in the dorsal part of the anterior insular cortex (AIC). Motor tasks involving both the upper and lower extremity reproducibly activated a posterior AIC region, adjacent to the sulcus centralis insulae (SCI). Significant co-activation with the probabilistically defined amygdala was located in the ventral AIC where also responses related to …