PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Lenggenhager, Bigna AU - Tadi, Tej AU - Metzinger, Thomas AU - Blanke, Olaf TI - Video Ergo Sum: Manipulating Bodily Self-Consciousness AID - 10.1126/science.1143439 DP - 2007 Aug 24 TA - Science PG - 1096--1099 VI - 317 IP - 5841 4099 - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/317/5841/1096.short 4100 - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/317/5841/1096.full SO - Science2007 Aug 24; 317 AB - Humans normally experience the conscious self as localized within their bodily borders. This spatial unity may break down in certain neurological conditions such as out-of-body experiences, leading to a striking disturbance of bodily self-consciousness. On the basis of these clinical data, we designed an experiment that uses conflicting visual-somatosensory input in virtual reality to disrupt the spatial unity between the self and the body. We found that during multisensory conflict, participants felt as if a virtual body seen in front of them was their own body and mislocalized themselves toward the virtual body, to a position outside their bodily borders. Our results indicate that spatial unity and bodily self-consciousness can be studied experimentally and are based on multisensory and cognitive processing of bodily information.