Homeostatic emotion

A homeostatic emotion, primordial emotion or primordial feeling is an attention-demanding sensation and motivation (e.g., thirst, hunger, fatigue) evoked by an internal body state that drives behavior (drinking, eating and resting in these examples) aimed at maintaining the body's internal milieu in its ideal state.

Derek Denton defines "primordial emotion" as "the subjective element of the instincts, which are the genetically programmed behaviour patterns which contrive homeostasis. They include thirst, hunger for air, hunger for food, pain, hunger for specific minerals etc. There are two constituents of a primordial emotion--the specific sensation which when severe may be imperious, and the compelling intention for gratification by a consummatory act."

Bud Craig argues that humans and anthropoid primates form an image of all of the body's unique homeostatic sensations in the brain's "primary interoceptive cortex" (located in the dorsal posterior insula). This image is mirrored ("re-represented") in the mid- and anterior insula, and the anterior insula's image (modulated by input from cognitive, affective and reward-related circuits) embodies conscious awareness of the whole body's homeostatic state. A sensation re-represented in the anterior insula and that sensation's related motivation hosted in the anterior cingulate cortex form a "homeostatic emotion."

Antonio Damasio uses "primordial feeling" to denote this class of sensations/motivations in his 2010 book, Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain.