There is a report of an interesting study on Psych Central about how metaphors are processed in the brain. The main point is that when someone hears a metaphor with a textural quality, the parietal operculum, the region of the brain that senses texture through touch, is activated .
This is an interesting study for depth psychology for, as Jung states, "An archetypal content expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors."
This study, I believe, provides support for Jung's notion that symbols (metaphors of an archetypal nature) are "the best possible expression for something that cannot be expressed otherwise than by a more or less close analogy." In other words, it is not just through rational processes that something is understood. The non-rational functions of sensing and intuition are necessary to grasp symbolic and metaphoric images.
Of course, being brain researchers, the authors of the study conceptualize what is happening in terms of their preferred metaphor: the brain. Here is their formulation for what they are seeing:
"What could be happening is that the brain is conducting an internal simulation as a way to understand the metaphor, and that’s why the regions associated with touch get involved. This also demonstrates how complex processes involving symbols, such as appreciating a painting or understanding a metaphor, do not depend just on evolutionarily new parts of the brain, but also on adaptations of older parts of the brain.”
I prefer Joseph Campbell's formulation which allows for the engagement of what might be called the body-psyche, of which the brain is but one part:
"Myths and dreams are motivated from a single psychophysiological source--namely, the human imagination moved by the conflicting urgencies of the organs (including the brain) of the human body, of which the anatomy has remained pretty much the same since c. 40, 000 BC."