A systematic review and meta-analysis on the neural correlates of bodily self-consciousness

The sense of one's own body, also referred to as bodily self-consciousness (BSC), is an important aspect of self-consciousness, that allows us to experience our body as our own. Previous research has identified the distinct components of BSC (i.e., body ownership, sense of agency, and self-location), and investigated their neural correlates separately. However, a consensus on the brain regions involved in BSC has not been found, and whether the experience of BSC goes beyond the sum of its components is still unknown. This study aims to identify the neural correlates of the components of manipulated BSC, as well as their shared patterns of activation. We conducted a meta-analysis employing multi-level kernel density analysis on 56 neuroimaging studies investigating manipulated BSC (primarily body ownership and sense of agency) in healthy individuals, to determine their neural correlates individually, as well as shared activations across them. Our analyses revealed activations in left premotor, bilateral posterior parietal, and left occipital cortices for altered body ownership, whereas altered sense of agency engaged the right temporoparietal junction, bilateral inferior parietal lobule, right frontal gyri, left postcentral gyrus, and left insula. The conjunction analysis revealed activations around the bilateral posterior parietal cortex, precentral gyrus, and temporo-occipito-parietal junction. These results support the presence of an interactive relationship between the components of manipulated BSC, tapping into the domain of self-recognition and detection of discrepancies across sensory inputs. Our findings point to a critical role of multisensory integration and self-attribution processes to the experience of manipulated BSC.