Journal of Neuroscience
January 19, 2005
Olaf Blanke, Christine Mohr, Christoph M. Michel et al.
573 citations
The temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is crucial for the conscious experience of the self as spatially united with the body. Using evoked potential mapping, the TPJ was selectively activated 330-400 milliseconds after stimulus onset when healthy volunteers imagined themselves in the position and visual perspective typical of out-of-body experiences (OBEs). Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the TPJ at this time impaired mental transformation of one's own body but not of external objects. In an epileptic patient with OBEs originating from the TPJ, partial activation of the seizure focus occurred during mental transformations mimicking her OBE perceptions. These findings suggest that impaired processing at the TPJ may lead to pathological selves such as OBEs.
November 7, 2022
Joseph M Barnby, Sohee Park, Tatiana Baxter et al.
1 citation
preprint
The felt presence (FP) experience—the sense that someone else is nearby without sensory evidence—ranges from benevolent to distressing and can be personified or ambiguous. FP occurs in neuropsychological conditions, psychosis, paranoia, sleep paralysis, anxiety, endurance sports, and spiritualist communities. This review covers philosophical, phenomenological, clinical, and non-clinical aspects of FP, along with psychometric, cognitive, and neurophysiological measurement methods. It presents current mechanistic explanations, proposes a unifying cognitive framework, and identifies outstanding questions. FP provides a window into the cognitive neuroscience of own-body awareness and social agency detection, an intuitive but poorly understood experience in health and disorder.
The lancet. Psychiatry
May 1, 2023
Joseph M Barnby, Sohee Park, Tatiana Baxter et al.
Felt presence is the basic feeling that someone else is nearby without clear sensory evidence, ranging from benevolent to distressing and appearing in neurological conditions, psychosis, sleep paralysis, endurance sports, and spiritualist communities. This review summarizes philosophical, phenomenological, clinical, and non-clinical correlates, along with psychometric, cognitive, and neurophysiological approaches. It presents current mechanistic explanations, proposes a unifying cognitive framework, and identifies outstanding questions. Felt presence offers a way to understand the cognitive neuroscience of own-body awareness and social agency detection as an intuitive but poorly understood experience in both health and disorder.
PsyCh journal
March 1, 2019
Taylor L Benson, Peter Brugger, Sohee Park
A new picture-based instrument, the Benson et al. Body Disturbances Inventory (B-BODI), was developed to quantify bodily self-disturbances in schizophrenia, addressing limitations of verbal self-report measures. Drawings depicting aberrant bodily self-experiences were presented with captions; participants rated frequency, vividness, and distress on a 5-point scale. Individuals with schizophrenia, older healthy controls, and college students completed two versions of the B-BODI along with established questionnaires. Results suggest the B-BODI accurately captures bodily self-disturbances and may predict psychosis risk in healthy young individuals. Anomalous self-disturbances appear relatively stable over time in chronic schizophrenia.