Over the past decade, the insula has captured the attention of the scientific community, emerging at the centre of one of most relevant debates of the century: How does the brain generate emotions? Due to its dense connectivity with cortical and subcortical areas that process autonomic and somatic information, researchers have proposed that the insula has a key role in emotional processing. Even though this claim has been supported by neuroimaging studies, we still know little about the potential impact that damage to the insula may have on emotional function. This research digest attempts to offer the reader a brief review of key papers on this topic, thus summarizing the main findings from lesions studies, as well as their theoretical and technical limitations.