Abstract
“What is self?” or “Where is self?”––for a long time, many academics have been discussing various problems associated with the complex and ambiguous existence of the “self.” In recent years, a number of neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural basis of the self-recognition processes. In this chapter, we classify the self into two types, “bodily self ” and “mental self, ” and review the studies on the brain regions associated with self-recognition. First, we pick up sense of ownership and sense of agency as the bodily self. These abilities are assumed to be based on the brain regions that process the visual-perceptual information about body parts and that match the visual and proprioceptive information with the movement information in premotor cortex . Second, self-representation , which is one of the main parts of the mental self, is known to be involved with medial prefrontal cortex and cortical midline structure . Additionally, to maintain the sense of self, we continuously have to integrate information about ourselves without the distinction between bodily and mental self. In the “integrated self,” the brain regions that receive and process sensory input from the body and the prefrontal cortex that carries out higher-order cognitive functions have an important role.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
A recent report suggested that the left and right fusiform gyri have distinct functions in recognizing the face of self (Ma and Han 2012).
- 2.
Another report showed that other brain regions involved in the perception of body parts within the fusiform gyrus (fusiform body area) are activated more strongly upon seeing one’s own body parts than the body parts of others (Vocks et al. 2010).
- 3.
On the other hand, Denny et al. (2012) performed a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies and reported that there is a ventral-to-dorsal gradient in MPFC for self- to other judgments from a direct comparison between both. Furthermore, other reviews or meta-analyses reached approximately the same conclusion (van der Meer et al. 2010; Qin and Northoff 2011; Wagner et al. 2012).
References
Andersen RA, Snyder LH, Bradley DC, Xing J (1997) Multimodal representation of space in the posterior parietal cortex and its use in planning movements. Annu Rev Neurosci 20:303–330. doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.20.1.303
Bergström ZM, Vogelsang DA, Benoit RG, Simons JS (2014) Reflections of oneself: neurocognitive evidence for dissociable forms of self-referential recollection. Cereb Cortex 25:2648–2657. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhu063
Biringer F, Anderson JR (1992) Self-recognition in Alzheimer’s disease: a mirror and video study. J Gerontol 47:385–388
Bologna SM, Camp CJ (1997) Covert versus overt self-recognition in late stage Alzheimer’s disease. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 3:195–198
Botvinick M, Cohen J (1998) Rubber hands “feel” touch that eyes see. Nature 391:756. doi:10.1038/35784
Bower G, Gilligan S (1979) Remembering information related to one’s self. J Res Pers 13:420–432
Buckner RL, Andrews-Hanna JR, Schacter DL (2008) The brain’s default network: anatomy, function, and relevance to disease. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1124:1–38. doi:10.1196/annals.1440.011
Chalmers DJ (1995) Facing up to the problem of consciousness. J Conscious Stud 2:200–219
Cousins SD (1989) Culture and self-perception in Japan and United States. J Pers Soc Psychol 56:124–131
Craik FIM, Moroz TM, Moscovitch M et al (1999) In search of the self: a positron emission tomography study. Psychol Sci 10:26–34
Damasio AR (1999) The feeling of what happens: body and emotion in the making of consciousness. Harcourt Brace & Company, New York
David N, Cohen MX, Newen A et al (2007) The extrastriate cortex distinguishes between the consequences of one’s own and others’ behavior. NeuroImage 36:1004–1014. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2007.03.030
David N, Newen A, Vogeley K (2008) The “sense of agency” and its underlying cognitive and neural mechanisms. Conscious Cogn 17:523–534. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2008.03.004
David N, Jansen M, Cohen MX et al (2009) Disturbances of self-other distinction after stimulation of the extrastriate body area in the human brain. Soc Neurosci 4:1–9. doi:10.1080/17470910801938023
de Vignemont F, Fourneret P (2004) The sense of agency: a philosophical and empirical review of the “Who” system. Conscious Cogn 13:1–19. doi:10.1016/S1053-8100(03)00022-9
Denny BT, Kober H, Wager TD, Ochsner KN (2012) A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies of self- and other judgments reveals a spatial gradient for mentalizing in medial prefrontal cortex. J Cogn Neurosci 24:1742–1752. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00233
Downing PE, Jiang Y, Shuman M, Kanwisher N (2001) A cortical area selective for visual processing of the human body. Science 293:2470–2473. doi:10.1126/science.1063414
Downing PE, Peelen MV, Wiggett AJ, Tew BD (2006) The role of the extrastriate body area in action perception. Soc Neurosci 1:52–62. doi:10.1080/17470910600668854
Easton S, Blanke O, Mohr C (2009) A putative implication for fronto-parietal connectivity in out-of-body experiences. Cortex 45:216–227. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2007.07.012
Ehrsson HH, Spence C, Passingham RE (2004) That’s my hand! Activity in premotor cortex reflects feeling of ownership of a limb. Science 305:875–877. doi:10.1126/science.1097011
Ehrsson HH, Holmes NP, Passingham RE (2005) Touching a rubber hand: feeling of body ownership is associated with activity in multisensory brain areas. J Neurosci 25:10564–10573. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0800-05.2005
Farrer C, Franck N, Georgieff N et al (2003) Modulating the experience of agency: a positron emission tomography study. NeuroImage 18:324–333. doi:10.1016/S1053-8119(02)00041-1
Feinberg TE (2001) Altered egos – how the brain creates the self. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Feinberg TE (2011) The nested neural hierarchy and the self. Conscious Cogn 20:4–15. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2010.09.016
Fossati P, Hevenor SJ, Graham SJ et al (2003) In search of the emotional self: an fMRI study using positive and negative emotional words. Am J Psychiatry 160:1938–1945
Gallagher I (2000) Philosophical conceptions of the self: implications for cognitive science. Trends Cogn Sci 4:14–21
Gallagher I, Frith CD (2003) Functional imaging of ‘theory of mind’. Trends Cogn Sci 7:77–83
Graziano MSA, Hu XT, Gross CG (1997) Visuospatial properties of ventral premotor cortex. J Neurophysiol 77:2268–2292
Graziano MSA, Gross CG, Taylor CSR, Moore T (2004) A system of multimodal areas in the primate brain. In: Spence C, Driver J (eds) Crossmodal space and crossmodal attention. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 51–67
Gusnard DA, Akbudak E, Shulman GL, Raichle ME (2001) Medial prefrontal cortex and self-referential mental activity: relation to a default mode of brain function. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 98:4259–4264. doi:10.1073/pnas.071043098
Han S, Northoff G (2008) Culture-sensitive neural substrates of human cognition: a transcultural neuroimaging approach. Nat Rev Neurosci 9:646–654. doi:10.1038/nrn2456
Han S, Mao L, Gu X et al (2008) Neural consequences of religious belief on self-referential processing. Soc Neurosci 3:1–15. doi:10.1080/17470910701469681
Heatherton TF, Wyland CL, Macrae CN et al (2006) Medial prefrontal activity differentiates self from close others. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 1:18–25. doi:10.1093/scan/nsl001
Hehman JA, German TP, Klein SB (2005) Impaired self – recognition from recent photographs in a case of late – stage Alzheimer’s Disease. Soc Cogn 23:118–124
Johnson SC, Baxter LC, Wilder LS et al (2002) Neural correlates of self-reflection. Brain 125:1808–1814. doi:10.1093/brain/awf181
Kanwisher N, McDermott J, Chun MM (1997) The fusiform face area: a module in human extrastriate cortex specialized for face perception. J Neurosci 17:4302–4311
Kelley WM, Macrae CN, Wyland CL et al (2002) Finding the self? An event-related fMRI study. J Cogn Neurosci 14:785–794. doi:10.1162/08989290260138672
Klein SSB, Loftus J (1988) The nature of self-referent encoding: the contributions of elaborative and organizational processes. J Pers Soc Psychol 55:5–11. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.55.1.5
Kuiper NA, Rogers TB (1979) Encoding of personal information: self-other differences. J Pers Soc Psychol 37:499–514. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.37.4.499
Legrand D, Ruby P (2009) What is self-specific? Theoretical investigation and critical review of neuroimaging results. Psychol Rev 116:252–282. doi:10.1037/a0014172
Leube D, Knoblich G, Erb M et al (2003) The neural correlates of perceiving one’s own movements. NeuroImage 20:2084–2090. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.07.033
Lieberman, MD (2013) Social: why our brains are wired to connect. Crown, New York.
Ma Y, Han S (2012) Functional dissociation of the left and right fusiform gyrus in self-face recognition. Hum Brain Mapp 33:2255–2267. doi:10.1002/hbm.21356
Miller BL, Seeley WW, Mychack P et al (2001) Neuroanatomy of the self: evidence from patients with frontotemporal dementia. Neurology 57:817–821
Myers A, Sowden PT (2008) Your hand or mine? The extrastriate body area. NeuroImage 42:1669–1677. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.05.045
Newen A, Vogeley K (2003) Self-representation: searching for a neural signature of self-consciousness. Conscious Cogn 12:529–543. doi:10.1016/S1053-8100(03)00080-1
Northoff G, Bermpohl F (2004) Cortical midline structures and the self. Trends Cogn Sci 8:102–107. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2004.01.004
Northoff G, Heinzel A, de Greck M et al (2006) Self-referential processing in our brain – a meta-analysis of imaging studies on the self. NeuroImage 31:440–457. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.12.002
Ojemann GA, Schoenfield-McNeill J, Corina D (2004) Different neurons in different regions of human temporal lobe distinguish correct from incorrect identification or memory. Neuropsychologia 42:1383–1393. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2004.01.008
Platek SM, Keenan JP, Gallup GG, Mohamed FB (2004) Where am I? The neurological correlates of self and other. Cogn Brain Res 19:114–122. doi:10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2003.11.014
Platek SM, Wathne K, Tierney NG, Thomson JW (2008) Neural correlates of self-face recognition: an effect-location meta-analysis. Brain Res 1232:173–184. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2008.07.010
Qin P, Northoff G (2011) How is our self related to midline regions and the default-mode network? NeuroImage 57:1221–1233. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.05.028
Ramachandran VS (2011) The tell-tale brain: a neuroscientist’s quest for what makes us human. W. W. Norton & Company, New York
Rogers TB, Kuiper NA, Kirker WS (1977) Self-reference and the encoding of personal information. J Pers Soc Psychol 35:677–688
Ruby P, Decety J (2003) What you believe versus what you think they believe: a neuroimaging study of conceptual perspective-taking. Eur J Neurosci 17:2475–2480
Salomon R, Levy DR, Malach R (2014) Deconstructing the default: cortical subdivision of the default mode/intrinsic system during self-related processing. Hum Brain Mapp 35:1491–1502. doi:10.1002/hbm.22268
Saxe R, Wexler A (2005) Making sense of another mind: the role of the right temporo-parietal junction. Neuropsychologia 43:1391–1399
Schmitz TW, Kawahara-Baccus TN, Johnson SC (2004) Metacognitive evaluation, self-relevance, and the right prefrontal cortex. NeuroImage 22:941–947. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.02.018
Schnell K, Heekeren K, Schnitker R et al (2007) An fMRI approach to particularize the frontoparietal network for visuomotor action monitoring: detection of incongruence between test subjects’ actions and resulting perceptions. NeuroImage 34:332–341. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.08.027
Sheline YI, Barch DM, Price JL et al (2009) The default mode network and self-referential processes in depression. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 106:1942–1947. doi:10.1073/pnas.0812686106
Spreng RN, Grady CL (2010) Patterns of brain activity supporting autobiographical memory, prospection, and theory of mind, and their relationship to the default mode network. J Cogn Neurosci 22:1112–1123. doi:10.1162/jocn.2009.21282
Sugiura M, Watanabe J, Maeda Y et al (2005) Cortical mechanisms of visual self-recognition. NeuroImage 24:143–149. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.07.063
Sugiura M, Sassa Y, Jeong H et al (2006) Multiple brain networks for visual self-recognition with different sensitivity for motion and body part. NeuroImage 32:1905–1917. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.05.026
Symons CS, Johnson BT (1997) The self-reference effect in memory: a meta-analysis. Psychol Bull 121:371–394
Uddin LQ, Kaplan JT, Molnar-Szakacs I et al (2005) Self-face recognition activates a frontoparietal “mirror” network in the right hemisphere: an event-related fMRI study. NeuroImage 25:926–935. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.12.018
van der Meer L, Costafreda S, Aleman A, David AS (2010) Self-reflection and the brain: a theoretical review and meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies with implications for schizophrenia. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 34:935–946. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.12.004
Vanderwal T, Hunyadi E, Grupe DW et al (2008) Self, mother and abstract other: an fMRI study of reflective social processing. NeuroImage 41:1437–1446. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.03.058
Vinogradov S, Luks TL, Simpson GV et al (2006) Brain activation patterns during memory of cognitive agency. NeuroImage 31:896–905. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.12.058
Vocks S, Busch M, Grönemeyer D et al (2010) Differential neuronal responses to the self and others in the extrastriate body area and the fusiform body area. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 10:422–429. doi:10.3758/CABN.10.3.422
Völlm BA, Taylor ANW, Richardson P et al (2006) Neuronal correlates of theory of mind and empathy: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in a nonverbal task. NeuroImage 29:90–98. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.07.022
von Holst E (1954) Relations between the central Nervous System and the peripheral organs. Br J Anim Behav 2:89–94. doi:10.1016/S0950-5601(54)80044-X
Wagner AD, Shannon BJ, Kahn I, Buckner RL (2005) Parietal lobe contributions to episodic memory retrieval. Trends Cogn Sci 9:445–453. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2005.07.001
Wagner DD, Haxby JV, Heatherton TF (2012) The representation of self and person knowledge in the medial prefrontal cortex. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Cogn Sci 3:451–470. doi:10.1002/wcs.1183
Yaoi K, Osaka N, Osaka M (2009) Is the self special in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex? An fMRI study. Soc Neurosci 4:455–463. doi:10.1080/17470910903027808
Yaoi K, Osaka M, Osaka N (2013) Medial prefrontal cortex dissociation between self and others in a referential task: an fMRI study based on word traits. J Physiol 107:517–525
Yomogida Y, Sugiura M, Sassa Y et al (2010) The neural basis of agency: an fMRI study. NeuroImage 50:198–207. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.12.054
Zhu Y, Zhang L, Fan J, Han S (2007) Neural basis of cultural influence on self-representation. NeuroImage 34:1310–1316. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.08.047
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Japan KK
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Yaoi, K., Osaka, M., Osaka, N. (2017). Self-Recognition Process in the Human Prefrontal Cortex. In: Watanabe, M. (eds) The Prefrontal Cortex as an Executive, Emotional, and Social Brain. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56508-6_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56508-6_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Tokyo
Print ISBN: 978-4-431-56506-2
Online ISBN: 978-4-431-56508-6
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)