Two researchers in the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine have been renewed for another five years as investigators of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Both researchers, Kevin Campbell, Ph.D., and Michael Welsh, M.D., have been HHMI investigators since 1989.

Some neuroscientists have pegged an area of the brain known as the insula, which helps us detect what's going on within our bodies. But an unusual case of a man with extensive damage to this region suggests that the insula cannot be the sole source of self-awareness. Tucked deep inside the brain, the insula responds to pain, a full stomach, changes in body temperature, and other internal...