Salience network

The salience network identifies the most behaviourally relevant stimulus among competing internal and external signals and recruits the appropriate brain systems to act on it. Its two cortical hubs are the anterior insula and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, supported by subcortical and brainstem nodes including the amygdala and the arousal nuclei.

A central proposal is that the salience network acts as a switch: when it flags a salient event, it helps disengage the default mode network and engage the frontoparietal control and dorsal attention systems. This switching role places it at the interface between internally and externally oriented cognition.

The network is implicated in interoception, pain, and emotional awareness, and its dysfunction is discussed in frontotemporal dementia, addiction, and anxiety disorders.