When our body is another
The most common thing in the world is to feel that our body is ours. All right, so we feel from the moment we wake up to sleep, and so we feel also the parts of the body. It seems natural that it is so, but alterations and neuroscience have taught us that it is not so. Feeling that our body is ours" is a constructed consciousness that is demonstrated by the striking experiments led by researcher Henrik Ehrsson in the laboratory Brain, body & self of the Karolinska Institute.
Thus, the Ehrsson team has made the volunteers who have participated in the experiments feel like they are out of the body, making them believe, for example, that a rubber arm was their owners of three hands. They have also managed to show the body of dolls of different sizes as if it were his, trapped in the body of a barbie.
To create this perception in the brain, the Ehrsson team uses tricks that alter visual and tactile signals. The aim of the research is not, however, to be equated with the illusionists, but to understand how the interaction between the brain, the body and the environment occurs. By altering sensory signals, they want to learn how the brain builds the perception of feeling within the body itself.
At a great distance, researchers represent applications that will make people feel they own simulated bodies. For example, an application that allows a surgeon to look at the place of a microrobot so that it can operate as if it were inside the patient's body. Without going further, the results of the experiments could help to better understand and treat the alteration of the body muscle. And without moving from this magazine, they are a good opportunity to see how surprising a feeling that we consider safe can be altered.
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