title: Reprint of "Breathing and sense of self: visuo-respiratory conflicts alter body self-consciousness".
abstract: Bodily self-consciousness depends on the processing of interoceptive and exteroceptive signals. It can be disrupted by inducing signal conflicts. Breathing, at the crossroad between interoception and exteroception, should contribute to bodily self-consciousness. We induced visuo-respiratory conflicts in 17 subjects presented with a virtual body or a parallelepidedal object flashing synchronously or asynchronously with their breathing. A questionnaire detected illusory changes in bodily self-consciousness and breathing agency (the feeling of sensing one's breathing command). Changes in self-location were tested by measuring reaction time during mental ball drop (MBD). Synchronous illumination changed the perceived location of breathing (body: p=0.008 vs. asynchronous; object: p=0.013). It resulted in a significant change in breathing agency, but no changes in self-identification. This was corroborated by prolonged MBD reaction time (body: +0.045s, 95%CI [0.013; 0.08], p=0.007). We conclude that breathing modulates bodily self-consciousness. We also conclude that one can induce the irruption of unattended breathing into consciousness without modifying respiratory mechanics or gas exchange.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pulmonary Diseases, Geneva University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland. Electronic address: dan.adler@hcuge.ch.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Adler
authors.affiliation: Center for Neuroprosthetics, Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Herbelin
authors.affiliation: Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR_S 1158 Neurophysiologie Respiratoire Expérimentale et Clinique, F-75005 Paris, France; INSERM, UMR_S 1158 Neurophysiologie Respiratoire Expérimentale et Clinique, F-75005 Paris, France; AP-HP, Groupe Hospitalier Pitié-Salpêtrière Charles Foix, Service de Pneumologie et Réanimation Médicale (Département "R3S"), F-75013 Paris, France.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Similowski
authors.affiliation: Center for Neuroprosthetics, Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; Department of Neurology, Geneva University Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Olaf
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Blanke
keywords: Bodily self-consciousness; Breathing; Cerebral cortex; Dyspnea; Respiratory gating