“Finally, the qualitative component of the disgust affect program is a particular feeling of aversion, the all-too-familiar experience of revulsion and repulsion. From a subjective point of view, feelings of disgust can vary in intensity and texture from instance to instance, and more intense episodes are phenomenologically similar to nausea. In fact, this is no accident, as the disgust response includes many physiological concomitants of nausea (Ekman 1992). The connection between the digestive system and the affect program of disgust suggested by the previously mentioned increase in salivation that accompanies disgust, together with these similarities with nausea, has been further elucidated with brain imaging techniques. Evidence gathered using fMRI technology links disgust to the anterior insular cortex, which is thought to be involved in gustatory responses on independent grounds (Phillips et al. 1997). Indeed, the anterior insula is often called the “gustatory cortex” and is active in processing offensive tastes in both humans and other primates (Kinomura et al. 1994; Rolls and Baylis1994). This connection to the gustatory cortex also marks disgust as having a neural substrate distinct from other affect programs like fear and anger, which are more closely associated with amygdala.”