Spatial disruptions and the embodied Self in schizophrenia: toward a developmental framework

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Phenomenology

Background:

• Schizophrenia significantly impacts subjective experience, particularly body and spatial awareness.
• Existing research suggests alterations in personal space (PS) and peripersonal space (PPS) in schizophrenia.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a neurodevelopmental framework explaining spatial distortions in schizophrenia.
• To link observable spatial anomalies to phenomenological disruptions in lived spatiality.

Main Methods:

• Review of experimental findings on personal space (PS) and peripersonal space (PPS) distortions.
• Integration of neurodevelopmental, cognitive, and phenomenological psychopathology data.

Main Results:

• Consistent findings show an enlarged PS and a contracted PPS in individuals with schizophrenia.
• These spatial anomalies may reflect overexposure and diminished bodily capacity enactment.
• Spatial disorganization correlates with unstable self-world boundaries and altered atmosphere perception.

Conclusions:

• Neurodevelopmental disturbances in multisensory integration and sensorimotor learning likely underlie spatial anomalies.
• A unified framework integrating multiple dimensions offers insight into schizophrenia's spatial and self-disturbances.
• Embodiment and spatiality are key developmental interfaces in schizophrenia's subjective transformations.