We investigate how the brain generates the experience of being a self embodied in a physical body. We aim to uncover how signals from different senses and prior experiences combine to create the feeling that one’s body belongs to oneself and occupies a specific place in space.
We combine behavioral, neuroimaging, and computational approaches to study bodily self-perception and its neural basis. Using controlled bodily illusions and robotic multisensory stimulation, we manipulate the perception of one’s own body to reveal the neural computations and dynamic processes that generate the sense of one’s bodily self.
Four members of the lab — Sara Coppi, Heather Iriye, Renzo Lanfranco, and Mariano D'Angelo — participated in the ICON 2025 symposium “Recent Developments in Bodily Self-awareness Research” in Porto, which was organized by Sara Coppi.
In a new study led by Pawel Tacikowski, it is demonstrated that reducing body ownership through a perceptual illusion leads to fragmentation in self-concept. This connection between the bodily and conceptual self may shed light on dissociative experiences and mental health.
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A new study published in iScience, led by Sara Coppi, demonstrates that during the classic rubber hand illusion, pain is mislocalized toward the rubber hand. Just as touch and proprioception are transferred to the rubber hand, this “nociceptive drift” reveals that pain—like other senses—is integrated into the bodily self.
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