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Updated: Jun 17, 2026

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation
Published on: March 1, 2017
How vestibular stimulation interacts with illusory hand ownership
Christophe Lopez1, Bigna Lenggenhager, Olaf Blanke
1Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Brain-Mind Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Station 19, Lausanne, Switzerland. christophe.lopez@epfl.ch
Abstract:
Artificial stimulation of the peripheral vestibular system has been shown to improve ownership of body parts in neurological patients, suggesting vestibular contributions to bodily self-consciousness. Here, we investigated whether galvanic vestibular stimulation (GVS) interferes with the mechanisms underlying ownership, touch, and the localization of one's own hand in healthy participants by using the "rubber hand illusion" paradigm. Our results show that left anodal GVS increases illusory ownership of the fake hand and illusory location of touch. We propose that these changes are due to vestibular interference with spatial and/or temporal mechanisms of visual-tactile integration leading to an enhancement of visual capture. As only left anodal GVS lead to such changes, and based on neurological data on body part ownership, we suggest that this vestibular interference is mediated by the right temporo-parietal junction and the posterior insula.
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