Neuroscience-robotics pinpoint the seat of self-consciousness

A profoundly human experience is examined using brain scans and robotics. A new study uses creative engineering to unravel brain mechanisms associated with one of the most fundamental subjective human feelings: self-consciousness. The research, published in the April 28 issue of the journal Neuron, identifies a brain region called the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) as being critical for the feeling of being an entity localized at a particular position in space and for perceiving the world from this perspective. By comparing results between healthy volunteers and patients reporting out-of-body experiences (OBEs) of neurologic origin—the feeling of being outside of one's body—the study shows evidence for a link between brain activity in TPJ for self-consciousness in health and disease. The researchers adapted setups from previous experiments, adding the precision of an MRI-compatible robotic device and detailed analysis of the fMRI data. "This combination of engineering technologies and cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging techniques creates a powerful tool for understanding the relationship between self-consciousness and brain activity," explains Silvio Ionta from EPFL's Laboratory of Cognitive Neurosciences (LNCO). Full-body illusions during fMRI - Using visual and robotically applied tactile stimuli, the volunteers were tricked into believing that their self was either several feet in front of them or at a distanced and elevated position.