Self-specific brain activity during recognition of whole body imbalance

Abstract

The neural mechanism of controllability of posture and behavior in the bipedal humans for avoiding/protecting falling is highly important as one of the human survival strategies. There have been thus far few functional neuroimaging studies because of the restrictions placed on participants’ movements. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging（fMRI） to investigate the neural mechanism underlying whole body instability, based on the action-observation and self-recognition paradigm. We performed fMRI measurements while 13 adult male subjects viewed video clips of their own and others, in the dynamically unstable, dynamically stable and statically stable conditions, respectively. As a results, the self-specific activity was observed only in the dynamically unstable condition ; the temporoparietal junction, the parieto-insula vestibular cortex, the insular cortex and the anterior prefrontal cortex. This result showed that the neural substrate underlying self-recognition of one’s own body instability consists of the vestibular, emotional, and adaptive systems.