The Full Body Illusion. Credit: Roy Salomon
Answering a long-standing question, EPFL scientists have determined that the sense of body ownership is not affected in schizophrenia patients. Image: In the Full Body Illusion participants view their own backs being stroked, and when the seen and perceived stroking is synchronous a bodily illusion occurs causing them to feel illusory ownership over the viewed body. This study showed that contrary to previous beliefs, schizophrenia patients do not have any deficits in body ownership. Credit: Roy Salomon Schizophrenia patients often experience an altered sense of self, e.g. as if someone else is controlling their actions. This impairment is described as a deficit in the "sense of agency", and while it has been well established and linked to problems with sensorimotor brain signals, another category has been left unexplored: the "sense of body ownership" by which we feel that our bodies belong to ourselves. Using a full-body illusion experiment, EPFL scientists have now determined that body ownership is not affected in schizophrenia. The study is published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin .
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