title: From part- to whole-body ownership in the multisensory brain.
abstract: The question of how we experience ownership of an entire body distinct from the external world is a fundamental problem in psychology and neuroscience [1-6]. Earlier studies suggest that integration of visual, tactile, and proprioceptive information in multisensory areas [7-11] mediates self-attribution of single limbs. However, it is still unknown how ownership of individual body parts translates into the unitary experience of owning a whole body. Here, we used a "body-swap" illusion [12], in which people experienced an artificial body to be their own, in combination with functional magnetic resonance imaging to reveal a coupling between the experience of full-body ownership and neural responses in bilateral ventral premotor and left intraparietal cortices, and left putamen. Importantly, activity in the ventral premotor cortex reflected the construction of ownership of a whole body from the parts, because it was stronger when the stimulated body part was attached to a body, was present irrespective of whether the illusion was triggered by stimulation of the hand or the abdomen, and displayed multivoxel patterns carrying information about full-body ownership. These findings suggest that the unitary experience of owning an entire body is produced by neuronal populations that integrate multisensory information across body segments.
authors.affiliation: Brain, Body & Self Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Retzius väg 8, SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden. valeria.petkova@ki.se
authors.forename: Valeria I
authors.initials: VI
authors.lastname: Petkova
authors.forename: Malin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Björnsdotter
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gentile
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Jonsson
authors.forename: Tie-Qiang
authors.initials: TQ
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: H Henrik
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Ehrsson
mesh_terms: D001828:Body Image; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions / Q000523:psychology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D010067:Ownership; D011434:Proprioception; D014110:Touch; D055698:Touch Perception; D014796:Visual Perception