Multisensory brain mechanisms of bodily self-consciousness

Summary & key facts

This review says our sense of being a body comes from the brain combining many body signals. It describes three parts of bodily self-consciousness: self-identification (feeling a body is mine), self-location (where I feel I am), and the first-person perspective (the point from which I see). Experiments that create mismatched visual, touch or balance signals (using video, virtual reality or robots) can change these experiences, and brain areas such as bilateral premotor cortex, posterior parietal cortex and temporoparietal cortex are repeatedly linked to those changes. The review also notes patient and animal data support these links and that more work is needed on internal body signals (inte

Key facts:

• The review defines bodily self-consciousness as three components: self-identification, self-location and first-person perspective.
• Experiments using visuotactile and visuovestibular conflicts (for example with video, virtual reality or robotic devices) can induce changes in people’s sense of body ownership and location.
• Illusory self-identification with a fake or virtual body has been associated with changes in touch and pain perception, and with measurable physiological changes.
• Activity in the bilateral premotor cortex and posterior parietal cortex has been linked to self-identification; the review says this likely reflects multisensory neurons that integrate visual and somatosensory (touch) signals.
• Damage to the left temporoparietal cortex has been associated with abnormal self-identification and self-location (heautoscopy), while damage to the right temporoparietal cortex, especially the posterior superior temporal gyrus, has been as
• The authors say temporoparietal, premotor, posterior parietal and extrastriate cortices all play roles in integrating multisensory body signals relevant to bodily self-consciousness.
• The review (Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 18 July 2012, volume 13, pages 556–571) highlights that the interaction of multisensory signals with interoceptive (internal body) signals needs more research and that conclusions are based on a mix

Topics

Action Observation and Synchronization Multisensory perception and integration Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts

Categories

Psychology Social Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Artificial intelligence Cognition Cognitive psychology Cognitive science Computer science Consciousness Multisensory integration Neuroimaging Neuroscience Perception Perspective (graphical) Prefrontal cortex Psychology Self-consciousness Social psychology Temporoparietal junction