Oscillatory brain mechanisms of the hypnotically-induced out-of-body experience.
Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior November 1, 2017 Maor Zeev-Wolf, Yair Dor-Ziderman, Abraham Goldstein et al.
Feeling located within one's body and viewing the world from that perspective is a key aspect of consciousness. Current theories emphasize multisensory integration and the right temporal-parietal junction (rTPJ) in supporting self-location, based on bottom-up sensory manipulations or direct brain disruption. This study used hypnotic suggestion, a non-invasive top-down technique, to manipulate self-location in 18 participants while recording brain activity with MEG. Spectral analyses of spontaneous data before and during an induced out-of-body experience revealed high correlations between alpha and high-gamma power and the degree of perceived change in self-location. Correlated regions included temporal-occipital areas, rTPJ, and frontal and midline regions, supporting an oscillatory-based predictive coding framework.