The vestibular component in out-of-body experiences: a computational approach

Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) may arise from disrupted vestibular processing in the brain. Using Bayesian modeling, the authors show that OBEs and associated illusory changes in self-location and movement can be explained as a misled inference: ambiguous signals from the vestibular otoliths in a supine position are integrated with a prior expectation for an upright body position, measured during natural head movements. This suggests that the brain's normal mechanisms for locating the self in space can be tricked by conflicting sensory and prior information. The findings point to ways to induce and study self-location and bodily self-consciousness experimentally in healthy individuals.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Neurological evidence suggests that disturbed vestibular processing may play a key role in triggering out-of-body experiences (OBEs). Little is known about the brain mechanisms during such pathological conditions, despite recent experimental evidence that the scientific study of such experiences may facilitate the development of neurobiological models of a crucial aspect of self-consciousness: embodied self-location. Here we apply Bayesian modeling to vestibular processing and show that OBEs and the reported illusory changes of self-location and translation can be explained as the result of a mislead Bayesian inference, in the sense that ambiguous bottom-up signals from the vestibular otholiths in the supine body position are integrated with a top-down prior for the upright body position, which we measure during natural head movements. Our findings have relevance for self-location and translation under normal conditions and suggest novel ways to induce and study experimentally both aspects of bodily self-consciousness in healthy subjects.