Transient Modulations of Neural Responses to Heartbeats Covary with Bodily Self-Consciousness

Abstract

What are the brain mechanisms of self-consciousness? Prominent views propose that the neural processing associated with signals from the internal organs (such as the heart and the lung) plays a critical role in self-consciousness. Although this hypothesis dates back to influential views in philosophy and psychology (e.g., William James), definitive experimental evidence supporting this idea is lacking despite its recent impact in neuroscience. In the present study, we show that posterior cingulate activities responding to heartbeat signals covary with changes in participants' conscious self-identification with a body that were manipulated experimentally using virtual reality technology. Our finding provides important neural evidence about the long-standing proposal that self-consciousness is linked to the cortical processing of internal bodily signals.