Abstract
Bodily self-consciousness has become an important topic in cognitive neuroscience aiming to understand how the brain creates a unified sensation of the self in a body. Specifically, full body illusion (FBI) in which changes in bodily self-consciousness are experimentally introduced by using visual-tactile stimulation has led to improve understanding of these mechanisms. This paper introduces a novel approach to the classic FBI paradigm using a robotic master-slave system which allows us to examine interactions between action and the sense of body ownership in behavioral and MRI experiments. In the proposed approach, the use of the robotic master-slave system enables unique stimulation in which experimental participants can administer tactile cues on their own back using active self-touch. This active self-touch has never been employed in FBI experiments and it allows to test the role of sensorimotor integration and agency (the feeling of control over our actions) in FBI paradigms. The objective of this study is to propose a robotic-haptic platform allowing a new FBI paradigm including the active self-touch in MRI environments. This paper, first, describes the design concept and the performance of the prototype device in the fMRI environment (for 3. T and 7. T MRI scanners). In addition, the prototype device is applied to a classic FBI experiment, and we verify that the use of the prototype device succeeded in inducing the FBI. These results indicate that the proposed approach has a potential to drive advances in our understanding of human body ownership and agency by allowing novel manipulation and paradigms.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 25-34 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Journal of Neuroscience Methods |
Volume | 235 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 30 Sep 2014 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was mainly supported by Grant-in-Aids for Young Scientists (B) ( 23700246 ) and (A) ( 26700027 ) of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). We also thank Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM) and Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), Switzerland for their helps during the MRI compatibility tests. R. Salomon was supported by the National Center of Competence in Research “SYNAPSY – The Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases” financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (No. 51AU40_125759 ). O. Blanke is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation ( 32003B_144025 ) and the Bertarelli Foundation.
Funding
This work was mainly supported by Grant-in-Aids for Young Scientists (B) ( 23700246 ) and (A) ( 26700027 ) of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). We also thank Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM) and Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), Switzerland for their helps during the MRI compatibility tests. R. Salomon was supported by the National Center of Competence in Research “SYNAPSY – The Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases” financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation (No. 51AU40_125759 ). O. Blanke is supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation ( 32003B_144025 ) and the Bertarelli Foundation.
Funders | Funder number |
---|---|
Fondation Bertarelli | |
nccr – on the move | |
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science | 26700027 |
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung | 51AU40_125759, 32003B_144025 |
Keywords
- Bodily self-consciousness
- Body ownership
- FMRI
- Full body illusion
- Robotics and haptic technology