Threatening a rubber hand that you feel is yours elicits a cortical anxiety response.
H Henrik Ehrsson, Katja Wiech, Nikolaus Weiskopf, Raymond J Dolan, Richard E. Passingham
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America June 5, 2007 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0610011104 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Anxiety |
| Key findings | Threat to a rubber hand during the illusion induces brain activity in anxiety and interoceptive areas similar to threat to the real hand, with stronger ownership linked to stronger responses, and motor areas reflecting withdrawal urges. |
Abstract
The feeling of body ownership is a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness. The underlying neural mechanisms can be studied by using the illusion where a person is made to feel that a rubber hand is his or her own hand by brushing the person's hidden real hand and synchronously brushing the artificial hand that is in full view. Here we show that threat to the rubber hand can induce a similar level of activity in the brain areas associated with anxiety and interoceptive awareness (insula and anterior cingulate cortex) as when the person's real hand is threatened. We further show that the stronger the feeling of ownership of the artificial hand, the stronger the threat-evoked neuronal responses in the areas reflecting anxiety. Furthermore, across subjects, activity in multisensory areas reflecting ownership predicted the activity in the interoceptive system when the hand was under threat. Finally, we show that there is activity in medial wall motor areas, reflecting an urge to withdraw the artificial hand when it is under threat. These findings suggest that artificial limbs can evoke the same feelings as real limbs and provide objective neurophysiological evidence that the rubber hand is fully incorporated into the body. These findings are of fundamental importance because they suggest that the feeling of body ownership is associated with changes in the interoceptive systems.