Voluntary Out-of-Body Experience: An fMRI Study
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience January 1, 2014 Andra Smith, Claude Messier 48 citations
A participant who can voluntarily produce sensations of her body moving outside its physical boundaries, while knowing her body is still, showed distinct brain activity patterns during these extra-corporeal experiences (ECEs) compared to motor imagery. Brain scans revealed left-sided activations in the supplementary motor area, supramarginal gyrus, posterior superior temporal gyrus (overlapping the temporoparietal junction linked to out-of-body experiences), and cerebellum, consistent with the impression of movement. Additional activity in the left middle and superior orbital frontal gyri, regions tied to action monitoring, suggests this ECE is an unusual form of kinesthetic imagery.