Finding Yourself In Your Own Brain

The feeling of being in one's body requires neural processing in two separate brain areas: the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), which processes the concept of "self," and the extrastriate body area (EBA), dedicated to recognition of human bodies and even body parts. Arzy et al. used evoked potential mapping to examine the tasks performed by each of these areas. Subjects performed an own-body transformation (OBT) task, in which they imagined themselves in the orientation of a schematically presented body, and a mirror (MIR) task in which subjects imagined that the figure was their reflection. The tasks differed subtly in that the OBT task required a disembodied-self location, whereas the MIR task retained their normally embodied position. The sites and timing of activation also differed. Embodied-self location tasks activated the left EBA at 318 ms, which was influenced by whether the subject was seated or supine. The disembodied task activated the right TPJ and left EBA at …367 ms.

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Shahar Arzy, Gregor Thut, Christine Mohr, Christoph M. Michel, and Olaf Blanke

Source: News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience

Contact: Sara Harris
Society for Neuroscience
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Finding Yourself In Your Own Brain