Brain, Body, and Self Lab

Brain, Body & Self lab celebrating 2025 with a traditional Swedish Christmas smorgasbord (Julbord) at Hasselbacken, Stockholm

Why our physical bodies may be a core part of conscious experience – new research The brain’s sense of “this is my body” is tightly bound to conscious awareness – far more than many theories assume.

Metacognitive modeling of bodily self-awareness, made easy. Read The Conversation piece by @renzolanfranco.bsky.social about our new PNAS study here.
theconversation.com/why-our-phys...

Body ownership is not constructed unconsciously and then brought to awareness—it emerges directly in consciousness. A fundamental insight for understanding the bodily self, with clear implications for theories of consciousness. See PNAS article and thread below.

Check out the symposium “Recent Developments in Bodily Self-awareness Research” hosted by @coppi_sara at ICON 2025 in Porto tomorrow, Friday, at 1:30PM! Speakers: Sara Coppi, Heather Iriye, Renzo Lanfranco and Mariano D'Angelo.

Bodily disownership is associated with self-concept fragmentation Behavioral neuroscience; Sensory neuroscience; Cognitive neuroscience

New study shows that reducing body ownership through a perceptual illusion leads to fragmentation in self-concept. This link between the bodily and conceptual self may shed light on dissociative experiences and mental health.
www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

In our new iScience study led by Sara Coppi, we show that during the rubber hand illusion, pain is mislocalized toward the rubber hand. This nociceptive drift reveals how pain, like other senses, is integrated into the bodily self.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40546968/

What is the relationship between conscious awareness and unconscious processing in the multisensory perception of our own bodies? In our new preprint, with @renzolanfranco.bsky.social as the lead author, we investigated this question. Link to the preprint and thread below

Postdoctoral studies in Cognitive Neuroscience (scholarship) Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research?  The Department of Neuroscience includes several research groups working on different aspects of nervous system function, both under normal

We are recruiting a new postdoc to the Brain, Body, and Self Lab at Karolinska Institutet. Check out the link for more information. ki.varbi.com/what:job/job...

Doctoral (PhD) student position in Cognitive Neuroscience Do you want to contribute to top quality medical research? To be a doctoral student means to devote oneself to a research project under supervision of experienced researchers and following an individu

We are recruiting a PhD student at the Brain, Body, and Self Lab, Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. Learn more and apply here: kidoktorand.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

20 years ago, Ehrsson, Spence, & @Dick_retired published a landmark study showing how the premotor and parietal cortex drive the sense of body ownership through multisensory integration in the rubber hand illusion.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Dynamic changes in somatosensory and cerebellar activity mediate temporal recalibration of self-touch - Communications Biology An fMRI study suggests that adaptation to sensorimotor delays when touching one hand with the other dynamically alters the activity in somatosensory and cerebellar regions.

Somatosensory and cerebellar activity reflects learning of predicted sensory delays in self-generated touch. Read the new Communications Biology article led by @kkilteni.bsky.social: www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Doctoral thesis awarded the Glushko Dissertation Prize Dominika Radziun, a former PhD student at Karolinska Institutet, and currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Institute, The Netherlands, has recently been awarded one of the five Glushko Di...

Congratulations to Dominika Radziun (@nikaradziun.bsky.social) on winning this prestigious prize for your doctoral thesis!
news.ki.se/doctoral-the...

Are you interested in the cognitive and neural processes underpinning the sense of bodily self? The deadline for the open postdoc position in our group is approaching on April 22.
ki.varbi.com/what:job/job...

We are looking for new postdocs! Apply before April 22nd!
ki.varbi.com/what:job/job...

Blind individuals' superior ability to sense their own heartbeats correlates with the thickness of their visual cortex. Check out the new preprint lead by Anna-Lena Stroh and @nikaradziun.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Sensing oneself: don't forget the subcortex! Crucianelli, Reader & Ehrsson review the subcortical contributions to the sense of body ownership – i.e. the feeling that one's body belongs to oneself. academic.oup.com/brain/articl...

Illusory body-swapping. Photo Staffan Larsson. From Petkova and Ehrsson (2008).

Hello, we are now on BlueSky!