Multisensory brain mechanisms of bodily self-consciousness

Abstract

Recent research has linked bodily self-consciousness to the processing and integration of multisensory bodily signals in temporoparietal, premotor, posterior parietal and extrastriate cortices. Studies in which subjects receive ambiguous multisensory information about the location and appearance of their own body have shown that these brain areas reflect the conscious experience of identifying with the body (self-identification (also known as body-ownership)), the experience of where 'I' am in space (self-location) and the experience of the position from where 'I' perceive the world (first-person perspective). Along with phenomena of altered states of self-consciousness in neurological patients and electrophysiological data from non-human primates, these findings may form the basis for a neurobiological model of bodily self-consciousness.