Self-other distinction modulates the sense of self-agency during joint actions.

In daily life interactions, we achieve goals with partners through tight temporal coordination or sequential joint efforts. Is our individual sense of control over shared outcomes (sense of self-agency) the same as the one experienced when we act alone? Do we explicitly and implicitly feel like we are fully in control of the motor act even if the goal is finally achieved by our partner? To address these questions, we measured explicit and implicit sense of self-agency in individual and (coordinated or sequential) interactive contexts. We studied 42 healthy adult participants during active/passive button presses aimed at turning on a light bulb.

Sense of agency in schizophrenia: A reconciliation of conflicting findings through a theory-driven literature review.

The sense of agency is the experience of being the author of self-generated actions and their outcomes. Both clinical manifestations and experimental evidence suggest that the agency experience and the mechanisms underlying agency attribution may be dysfunctional in schizophrenia. Yet, studies investigating the sense of agency in these patients show seemingly conflicting results: some indicated under-attribution of self-agency (coherently with certain positive symptoms), while others suggested over-attribution of self-agency.

Mapping the emotional homunculus with fMRI.

Emotions are commonly associated with bodily sensations, e.g., when overwhelmed with rage.

Trait food craving predicts functional connectivity between dopaminergic midbrain and the fusiform food area during eating imagery.

Neurofunctional coupling between the dopaminergic midbrain (i.e., ventral tegmental area, VTA) and higher-order visual regions may contribute to food craving, leading to the onset or maintenance of obesity.

The sense of agency in near and far space.

The sense of agency is the ability to recognize that we are the actors of our actions and their consequences. We explored whether and how spatial cues may modulate the agency experience by manipulating the ecological validity of the experimental setup (real-space or computer-based setup) and the distance of the action-outcome (near or far). We tested 58 healthy adults collecting explicit agency judgments and the perceived time interval between movements and outcomes (to quantify the intentional binding phenomenon, an implicit index of agency).

Sensory Attenuation Deficit and Auditory Hallucinations in Schizophrenia: A Causal Mechanism or a Risk Factor? Evidence From Meta-Analyses on the N1 Event-Related Potential Component.

Background: Sensory attenuation (SA), the dampened perception of self-generated sensory information, is typically associated with reduced event-related potential signals, such as for the N1 component of auditory event-related potentials. SA, together with efficient monitoring of intentions and actions, should facilitate the distinction between self-generated and externally generated sensory events, thereby optimizing interaction with the world. According to many, SA is deficient in schizophrenia.

How aging shapes our sense of agency.

The sense of agency refers to the feeling of controlling one's actions and their effects on the external environment. Here, we tested how the physiological process of aging affects the agency experience by taking advantage of a validated ecological experimental paradigm and exploring the different dimensions of agency. We tested 60 young and older adults during active and passive movements, causing, after a variable time delay, an external sensorial event.

Mapping Gilles de la Tourette syndrome through the distress and relief associated with tic-related behaviors: an fMRI study.

Personal distress associated with tic urges or inhibition and relief associated with tic production are defining features of the personal experience in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS). These affective phenomena have not been studied using fMRI, hindering our understanding of GTS pathophysiology and possible treatments. Here, we present a novel cross-sectional fMRI study designed to map tic-related phenomenology using distress and relief as predicting variables.

How images of food become cravingly salient in obesity.

Objective: This case-control study was aimed at testing two main hypotheses: (i) obesity is characterized by neurofunctional alterations within the mesocorticolimbic reward system, a brain network originating from the midbrain ventral tegmental area (VTA); and (ii) these alterations are associated with a bias for food-related stimuli and craving.

Methods: Normal-weight individuals and individuals with obesity underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan and the assessment of impulsivity, food craving, appetite, and implicit bias for food and non-food stimuli. The VTA was used as a seed to map, for each participant, the strength of its functional connections with the rest of the brain.

Neural structural abnormalities behind altered brain activation in obesity: Evidence from meta-analyses of brain activation and morphometric data.

Obesity represents a risk factor for disability with a major bearing on life expectancy. Neuroimaging techniques are contributing to clarify its neurobiological underpinnings. Here, we explored whether structural brain abnormalities might accompany altered brain activations in obesity.

When action prediction grows old: An fMRI study.

Predicting the unfolding of others' actions (action prediction) is crucial for successfully navigating the social world and interacting efficiently. Age-related changes in this domain have remained largely unexplored, especially for predictions regarding simple gestures and independent of contextual information or motor expertise. Here, we evaluated whether healthy aging impacts the neurophysiological processes recruited to anticipate, from the observation of implied-motion postures, the correct conclusion of simple grasping and pointing actions.

Imaging the neural underpinnings of freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease.

Freezing of gait (FoG) is a paroxysmal and sporadic gait impairment that severely affects PD patients' quality of life. This review summarizes current neuroimaging investigations that characterize the neural underpinnings of FoG in PD. The review presents and discusses the latest advances across multiple methodological domains that shed light on structural correlates, connectivity changes, and activation patterns associated with the different pathophysiological models of FoG in PD.

White matter abnormalities in the amputation variant of body integrity dysphoria.

"Body integrity dysphoria" (BID) is a severe condition affecting nonpsychotic individuals. In the amputation variant of BID, a limb may be experienced as not being part of the body, despite normal anatomical development and intact sensorimotor functions. We previously demonstrated altered brain structural (gray matter) and functional connectivity in 16 men with BID with a long-lasting and exclusive desire for left leg amputation.

The sense of agency in joint actions: A theory-driven meta-analysis.

The sense of agency is the feeling of voluntarily controlling our actions and their effects. It represents a crucial component of self-awareness, and it is foundational to our perception of responsibility toward what we do as individuals acting in a social context. While the sense of agency has been widely investigated in individual contexts, much less is known about the agency experienced when subjects are involved in motor interactions, despite its relevance in the social domain.

How the motor system copes with aging: a quantitative meta-analysis of the effect of aging on motor function control.

Motor cognitive functions and their neurophysiology evolve and degrade along the lifespan in a dramatic fashion. Current models of how the brain adapts to aging remain inspired primarily by studies on memory or language processes. Yet, aging is strongly associated with reduced motor independence and the associated degraded interaction with the environment: accordingly, any neurocognitive model of aging not considering the motor system is, ipso facto, incomplete.

Attention to body parts prompts thermoregulatory reactions in Body Integrity Dysphoria.

In healthy subjects, the transient perturbation of body part ownership is accompanied by regional skin temperature decrease. This observation leaves an open question about a possible body part-specific thermoregulatory response in pathological conditions, in which the sense of ownership over that body part is altered. For instance, Body Integrity Dysphoria (BID), a poorly understood neuropsychiatric disorder, is characterised by the non-acceptance of one or more of one's extremities.

Sense of agency disturbances in movement disorders: A comprehensive review.

Sense of agency refers to the experience that one's self-generated action causes an event in the external environment. Here, we review the behavioural and brain evidence of aberrant experiences of agency in movement disorders, clinical conditions characterized by either a paucity or an excess of movements unrelated to the patient's intention. We show that specific abnormal agency experiences characterize several movement disorders.

Brain Abnormalities in Individuals with a Desire for a Healthy Limb Amputation: Somatosensory, Motoric or Both? A Task-Based fMRI Verdict.

Body integrity dysphoria (BID), a long-lasting desire for the amputation of physically healthy limbs, is associated with reduced fMRI resting-state functional connectivity of somatosensory cortices. Here, we used fMRI to evaluate whether these findings could be replicated and expanded using a task-based paradigm. We measured brain activations during somatosensory stimulation and motor tasks for each of the four limbs in ten individuals with a life-long desire for the amputation of the left leg and fourteen controls.

Effects of Orthographic Consistency on Bilingual Reading: Human and Computer Simulation Data.

English serves as today's lingua franca, a role not eased by the inconsistency of its orthography. Indeed, monolingual readers of more consistent orthographies such as Italian or German learn to read more quickly than monolingual English readers. Here, we assessed whether long-lasting bilingualism would mitigate orthography-specific differences in reading speed and whether the order in which orthographies with a different regularity are learned matters.

Repetitive deep TMS for the reduction of body weight: Bimodal effect on the functional brain connectivity in "diabesity".

Background And Aims: Deep repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (deep rTMS) over the bilateral insula and prefrontal cortex (PFC) can promote weight-loss in obesity, preventing cardiometabolic complications as Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). To investigate the changes in the functional brain integration after dTMS, we conducted a resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) study in obesity.

Methods And Results: This preliminary study was designed as a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled study: 9 participants were treated with high-frequency stimulation (realTMS group), 8 were sham-treated (shamTMS group).

Altered sense of agency in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome: behavioural, clinical and functional magnetic resonance imaging findings.

Current neurocognitive models of motor control postulate that accurate action monitoring is crucial for a normal experience of agency-the ability to attribute the authorship of our actions and their consequences to ourselves. Recent studies demonstrated that action monitoring is impaired in Gilles de la Tourette syndrome, a movement disorder characterized by motor and vocal tics. It follows that Tourette syndrome patients may suffer from a perturbed sense of agency, the hypothesis tested in this study.

How the harm of drugs and their availability affect brain reactions to drug cues: a meta-analysis of 64 neuroimaging activation studies.

Visual drug cues are powerful triggers of craving in drug abusers contributing to enduring addiction. According to previous qualitative reviews, the response of the orbitofrontal cortex to such cues is sensitive to whether subjects are seeking treatment. Here we re-evaluate this proposal and assessed whether the nature of the drug matters.

Predicting the Sensory Consequences of Self-Generated Actions: Pre-Supplementary Motor Area as Supra-Modal Hub in the Sense of Agency Experience.

Sense of agency refers to the feeling that one's self-generated action caused an external environment event. In a previous study, we suggested that the supplementary motor area (SMA), in its anterior portion (pre-SMA), is a key structure for attributing the sense of agency for the visual consequences of self-generated movements. However, real-life actions can lead to outcomes in different sensory modalities, raising the question of whether SMA represents a supra-modal hub for the sense of agency.