, 2003 and Lobel et al , 1998) Although the exact location of th

, 2003 and Lobel et al., 1998). Although the exact location of the human vestibular cortex is still under debate (for review see Guldin and Grüsser, 1998, Lopez et al., 2008 and Lopez and Blanke, 2011), fMRI work consistently identified the vestibular cortex in the parietal operculum (Eickhoff et al., 2006 and Fasold et al., 2002) and the posterior insula (Bucher et al., 1998, Fasold et al., 2002 and Vitte

et al., 1996). Earlier find more lesion work also associated vestibular deficits with damage of the posterior insula (Brandt and Dieterich, 1999). Although none of these regions were significantly activated in our fMRI study, the proximity of the present fMRI and lesion TPJ locations to vestibular cortex suggests a potential involvement of vestibular cortex or adjacent multisensory cortex (integrating visual, vestibular, and somatosensory signals) in self-location Selleck RAD001 and the first-person perspective. Our questionnaire data (Q3) show that participants from both groups self-identified more strongly with

the virtual body when the tactile stroking was applied synchronously with the visual stroking (Aspell et al., 2009 and Lenggenhager et al., 2007). Our fMRI analysis detected an activation in the right middle-inferior temporal cortex that may partly reflect changes in self-identification with the seen virtual body. This activation was found to be partially overlapping with the stereotaxic location of the right extrastriate body area (EBA). Yet, although right EBA activity showed a body-specific difference between synchronous versus asynchronous stimulation

in both groups (Supplemental Information) that are compatible with EBA’s involvement in self-identification, EBA activity in the body/synchronous conditions was not significantly different from those in the control conditions, where no self-identification occurs (Supplemental Information). Accordingly, we are cautious to interpret this activity as related to self-identification, also because related changes concerning self-attribution of a fake or virtual hand (during the rubber hand illusion) were associated with activity increases (not decreases as in our right EBA data) in Bumetanide lateral premotor and frontal opercular regions (Ehrsson et al., 2004). We note however, that this finding of a potential implication of right EBA in self-identification with a full body extends previous notions that the EBA is involved in the processing of human bodies (Downing et al., 2001, Grossman and Blake, 2002 and Astafiev et al., 2004) and human body form recognition (Urgesi et al., 2007). The synchrony-related differences in the right EBA activity during the visual presentation of a human body are also of interest as they are concordant with higher consistency (Downing et al., 2001) and selectivity (Downing et al., 2006a and Downing et al., 2006b) of the right versus left EBA. Finally, other studies have revealed the role of the EBA in the perception (Downing et al.

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