Body Representation Network – BRNet

🎉 BRNet ECR Pioneer Award winner 🎉

Congrats to Dr Valeria Peviani 🏆

A postdoc at the Donders Institute & UKE Hamburg, Valeria’s work explores how body perception emerged from multisensory signals, combining computational modelling, psychophysics & electrophysiology.

👏 Well deserved!

Altered body representations are central to many neuropsychiatric and neurological conditions. At the 8th Annual BRNet Meeting, we’ll explore these questions under the theme “The Uncanny Body.”

Poster deadline: 20.02.2026
Registration: 30.03.2026

bodyrepresentation.wixsite.com/brnet/about-...

Happy holidays!
#Holiday reminder: you can subscribe to our newsletter to hear more about the upcoming #BRNet #event

Not long to go now until the submission deadline for the BRNet ECR award so get your nominations in! Link to details here: bodyrepresentation.wixsite.com/brnet/about-... @bodyrepnetwork.bsky.social

VEC Workshop VR Embodiment for Children (VEC) Workshop at IEEE VR 2026 This workshop will be part of IEEE VR 2026, March 21st/22nd (TBC) in Daegu, Korea. VR HMD device ownership at home or in-school is increasing...

📢 Exciting Announcement!

Have a look at this VR Embodiment for Children workshop at IEEE VR in Korea, March 2026! ✨

🔍 Explore this timely and important topic.
📝 Submissions are open until January 6, 2026.
🌐 More details: sites.google.com/view/xrkids

Novel method for rubber hand illusion strength measurement based on inverse multidimensional scaling - Behavior Research Methods In the present study, we developed a novel self-report measurement method for the rubber hand illusion (RHI) strength based on inverse multidimensional scaling (MDS). In the preregistered study consis...

Beyond Likert scales: We introduce a novel self-report method for measuring RHI strength using inverse multidimensional scaling. Ownership scores emerge from arrangements of bodily experiences in psychological bodily space as distances between RHI and baseline cases of no and full body ownership.

✨ Hybrid Event Alert!

The Smoky Mirrors Symposium: Self–Other Actions and Interactions in Real and Virtual Worlds at Aalto University is coming up on 12.12.25 👏

For more information, and to register, click the link below‼️

www.aalto.fi/en/events/sm...

Where & how in the body do you feel political disgust? 

What about hope?

..and are these sensations related to how much we know about politics?



🚀 These and other bodily matters are explored in our new preprint below; cool collab. led by great @andreavik.bsky.social 💪

#embodiment or #bodyrepresentation researchers - are there any standardised instructions or procedures for describing or showing embodiment concepts like body ownership/dis-ownership, agency etc. to participants? Any resources would be helpful! @bodyrepnetwork.bsky.social

My clinical trial, PGD-psi: psilocybin for prolonged grief, is live 🤩!
First screening done, several more booked.

The first EU-funded psychedelics study btw 😊

#neuroskyence
#PsychSciSky
#grief
#psychedelics
#psilocybin

Neural sensitivity to the heartbeat is modulated by fluctuations in affective arousal during spontaneous thought Spontaneous thoughts, occupying much of one’s awake time in daily life, are often colored by emotional qualities. While spontaneous thoughts have been associated with various neural correlates, the re...

Neural sensitivity to the heartbeat is modulated by fluctuations in affective arousal during spontaneous thought

D-4 before our next online seminar! Sign up now: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#body #touch #interoception #perception #pregnancy

🚨Do you want to join our online seminars?

Next month we have this amazing seminar with Anna and Noa!
Register to join, it’s free 🤓

#somatosensation
#interoception
#sensory
#body
#science
#neuroscience

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Microstructural Brain Correlates of Inter-individual Differences in Respiratory Interoception Interoception, the perception and integration of physiological signals, is a fundamental aspect of self-awareness and homeostasis. While previous work has explored interoceptive processing in the card...

You’re now breathing manually 🌬️

What underlies this ability to be consciously aware of own breathing?

In our new Journal of Neuroscience paper, we report the largest study to date linking brain microstructure to respiratory interoception.
www.jneurosci.org/content/earl... 🧵 👇

Major news!
Exhaustive metaanalysis (N=2706) finding that endogenous opioids play a MINOR role in human pain regulation:
Consistent with 0.3 on 11-point VAS

By @isabellmeier.bsky.social @martintrostheim.bsky.social @marieeikemo.bsky.social @loseth.bsky.social et al

Thread 👇
osf.io/preprints/os...

Case study: Brain–Body Biofeedback Platform
How can we capture the complexity of brain–body interaction during natural tasks?
Together with @maastrichtu.bsky.social ,we developed a mobile system for synchronized EEG, ECG, voice & event markers — real-time, modular, and research-ready.
#DigitalHealth

[Highlight of the Month] Hermann et al. Brain-heart interactions are associated with mortality and acute encephalopathy in ICU patients with severe COVID-19. Clin Neurophysiol 2025;175:2110745. doi.org/10.1016/j.cl...

Very interesting case. Hope this is indeed a framework for future translation of cog-neuro into clinical improvements

If you have publications that are relevant for body representation research, tag us!

We want to know and read you! 🤓

#research #bodyrepresentation #body #bodilyself #computational #neuroscience #bodilysignals

Like our new looks? 😉

BRNet has a new logo.

Contest winner Denise Cadete said her concept featured an “ambiguos silhouette framed like a picture, as an abstraction of representation itself, with the physical body and it’s representation”

Altered processing of self-produced sensations in psychosis at cortical and spinal levels Molecular Psychiatry - Altered processing of self-produced sensations in psychosis at cortical and spinal levels

just out in Molecular Psychiatry 😍: spinal & cortical alterations in processing of self-produced sensations in psychosis

including: touch, interoception, fMRI, SEP, HEP, behavior🧠🫀

#neuroskyence
#PsychSciSky
@paulasalamone.bsky.social @adamenmalm.bsky.social @rkaldewaij.bsky.social
rdcu.be/exN0e

Paula C. Salamone @paulasalamone.bsky.social presenting her talk "Brain-spinal alterations of self-produced sensations in psychosis".

Brilliant time at BRNet 2025 - always grateful for such a great community of body researchers! Inspiring chats with old and new friends & going home with many exciting new ideas :)

Here's my poster on children's body map accuracy 🕺

Thank you @bodyrepnetwork.bsky.social !

Chatting with Matej

What a lovely 3 days in Utrecht for #BRNet2025. Thanks everyone for the thought-provoking talks and chats. I think the computational modelling theme for this year was spot-on, congrats to the organisers @bodyrepnetwork.bsky.social ! Looking forward to seeing some of you again at #IMRF in Durham!

On my way home after an amazing #BRNet2025 in Utrecht. Such a wonderful community with excellent research. I can’t wait until next year! @bodyrepnetwork.bsky.social

Do you Like our new BRNet logo 🎉

#BRNet2025

Congrats to our poster winner Ziliang Xiong on ticklish sensations of humans 🎉 #BRNet2025

Last short talk of the day: Micah Allen on #computational insights into cardiac and respiratory #interoception at #BRNet2025

Next talk: Paula Salamone on bodily self alterations in Psychosis at #brain and #spine. At #BRNet2025