Gut markers of bodily self-consciousness
bioRxiv Preprint Server March 5, 2021 Alessandro Monti, Giuseppina Porciello, Maria Serena Panasiti et al. 6 citations preprint
Bodily self-consciousness, the awareness of one's own body, is fundamental to human experience but poorly understood. By combining an ingestible capsule that measures gut activity (temperature, pressure, pH, and gastric peak frequency) with surface electrogastrography during a virtual bodily illusion, specific patterns of stomach and bowel activity were found to covary with distinct facets of bodily self-consciousness, such as feelings of body agency, location, and disembodiment. These findings reveal a link between gut physiology and the self-conscious perception of being embodied, demonstrating the potential of minimally invasive probes for studying mind-gut connections.