Signals from the gut can reach different parts of the brain, but they can’t reach everywhere. For example, they never end up in the visual cortex at the back of the brain. If they did, we would see visual effects or images of what is going on in our gut. Regions they can end up in, however, include the insula, the limbic system, the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the anterior cingulate cortex. Any neuroscientists reading this will be up in arms when I roughly define the responsibilities of these brain regions as, respectively, self-awareness, emotion, morality, fear,
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