Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions

'Out-of-body' experiences (OBEs) are curious, usually brief sensations in which a person's consciousness seems to become detached from the body and take up a remote viewing position. Here we describe the repeated induction of this experience by focal electrical stimulation of the brai...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Nature (London) Vol. 419; no. 6904; pp. 269 - 270
Main Authors:	Blanke, Olaf, Ortigue, Stéphanie, Landis, Theodor, Seeck, Margitta
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	England 19-09-2002
Subjects:	Adult Brain - physiology Brain - physiopathology Brain Mapping Delusions - etiology Delusions - physiopathology Electric Stimulation Epilepsy - diagnosis Epilepsy - physiopathology Female Humans Seizures - diagnosis Seizures - physiopathology
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	'Out-of-body' experiences (OBEs) are curious, usually brief sensations in which a person's consciousness seems to become detached from the body and take up a remote viewing position. Here we describe the repeated induction of this experience by focal electrical stimulation of the brain's right angular gyrus in a patient who was undergoing evaluation for epilepsy treatment. Stimulation at this site also elicited illusory transformations of the patient's arm and legs (complex somatosensory responses) and whole-body displacements (vestibular responses), indicating that out-of-body experiences may reflect a failure by the brain to integrate complex somatosensory and vestibular information.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23
ISSN:	0028-0836 1476-4687
DOI:	10.1038/419269a