A Sensorimotor Network for the Bodily Self

Abstract

Neuroscientists and philosophers, among others, have long questioned the contribution of bodily experience to the constitution of self-consciousness. Contemporary research answers this question by focusing on the notions of sense of agency and/or sense of ownership. Recently, however, it has been proposed that the bodily self might also be rooted in bodily motor experience, that is, in the experience of oneself as instantiating a bodily structure that enables a specific range of actions. In the current fMRI study, we tested this hypothesis by making participants undergo a hand laterality judgment task, which is known to be solved by simulating a motor rotation of one's own hand. The stimulus to be judged was either the participant's own hand or the hand of a stranger. We used this task to investigate whether mental rotation of pictures depicting one's own hands leads to a different activation of the sensorimotor areas as compared with the mental rotation of pictures depicting another's hand. We revealed a neural network for the general representation of the bodily self encompassing the SMA and pre-SMA, the anterior insula, and the occipital cortex, bilaterally. Crucially, the representation of one's own dominant hand turned out to be primarily confined to the left premotor cortex. Our data seem to support the existence of a sense of bodily self encased within the sensorimotor system. We propose that such a sensorimotor representation of the bodily self might help us to differentiate our own body from that of others.

Bodily selves in relation: embodied simulation as second-person perspective on intersubjectivity

“…Implicit and explicit recognition of the bodily self dissociate: only implicit recognition of the bodily self, mapped in motor terms, facilitates implicit bodily self processing. A subsequent fMRI study [55] based on a similar hand mental rotation task showed that a bilateral cortical network formed by the supplementary and pre-supplementary motor areas, the anterior insula and the occipital cortex activated during processing of participants' own hands. Furthermore, the contralateral ventral premotor cortex was uniquely and specifically activated during the mental rotation of participants' own dominant hand.…”

Psychopathology of the Bodily Self and the Brain: The Case of Schizophrenia

“…A subsequent fMRI study by Ferri et al [31] using a similar hand mental rotation task demonstrated that a bilateral cortical network formed by the supplementary and presupplementary motor areas, the anterior insula and the occipital cortex was activated during processing of participants' own hands. Furthermore, the contralateral ventral premotor cortex (vPMC) was uniquely and specifically activated during mental rotation of participants' own dominant hands.…”

“…As shown in the previous section, the human vPMC is activated during the implicit processing of one's own hand [31]. Given that the vPMC appears to be hypofunctional as well as negatively correlated with self-experience disturbances in schizophrenia [55], and since it has been demonstrated that patients show a defective implicit sense of their bodily self [53], we hypothesize that the defective anticipatory touch displayed by schizophrenic patients as demonstrated by the study of Ferri et al [56] might share the same premotor origin [64].…”

Jaspers, the Body, and Schizophrenia: The Bodily Self

“…In a subsequent fMRI study [27], we tested the hypothesis that the sensorimotor system plays a pivotal role in the implicit self/other distinction during the laterality judgment task. We highlighted a neural network for the general representation of the bodily self encompassing the supplementary and presupplementary motor areas, the anterior insula, and the occipital cortex, bilaterally.…”