In 96 healthy adults, lower gray matter volume in the insular cortex was linked to greater reported malfunction in the sense of ownership over one's body, as measured by the Embodied Sense of Self Scale. No such relationship was found for the sense of agency or narrative self. This suggests that the feeling of ownership may rely on distinct brain structures, and the scale could help screen for such neural correlates.
A sensorimotor feedback paradigm using virtual reality induced a sense of body loss—the feeling that one's own body part disappears. Participants moved a virtual right hand synchronized with their real right hand to repeatedly touch the index finger of a virtual left hand. When the real and virtual right hands were spatially displaced but the virtual fingers appeared to touch, participants reported a pronounced sense of body loss and sensory attenuation, along with greater proprioceptive drift and unconscious movements of the left index finger. Visuotactile conflict during virtual self-touch can thus produce a sense of bodily disappearance.