Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA.
Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Cereb Cortex. 2019 Mar 1;29(3):1328-1341. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhy285.
Over the past decade, numerous neuroimaging studies based on hemodynamic markers of brain activity have examined the feeling of body ownership using perceptual body-illusions in humans. However, the direct electrophysiological correlates of body ownership at the cortical level remain unexplored. To address this, we studied the rubber hand illusion in 5 patients (3 males and 2 females) implanted with intracranial electrodes measuring cortical surface potentials. Increased high-γ (70-200 Hz) activity, an index of neuronal firing rate, in premotor and intraparietal cortices reflected the feeling of ownership. In both areas, high-γ increases were intimately coupled with the subjective illusion onset and sustained both during and in-between touches. However, intraparietal activity was modulated by tactile stimulation to a higher degree than the premotor cortex through effective connectivity with the hand-somatosensory cortex, which suggests different functional roles. These findings constitute the first intracranial electrophysiological characterization of the rubber hand illusion and extend our understanding of the dynamic mechanisms of body ownership.
在过去的十年中，许多基于大脑活动的血液动力学标记的神经影像学研究利用人体知觉身体错觉来研究身体所有权的感觉。然而，皮质水平上身体所有权的直接电生理相关性仍未被探索。为了解决这个问题，我们研究了 5 名植入测量皮质表面电位的颅内电极的患者（3 名男性和 2 名女性）的橡胶手错觉。运动前皮质和顶内皮质中高γ（70-200 Hz）活动的增加，是神经元放电率的指标，反映了所有权的感觉。在这两个区域，高γ的增加与主观错觉的开始密切相关，并在触摸期间和触摸之间持续存在。然而，与运动前皮质相比，顶内皮质的活动通过与手部感觉皮质的有效连通性受到触觉刺激的调节程度更高，这表明其具有不同的功能作用。这些发现构成了橡胶手错觉的首次颅内电生理特征描述，并扩展了我们对身体所有权动态机制的理解。
