The ability to perceive our effectors as parts of a unitary and coherent body schema is often taken for granted. Conversely, this percept is grounded on a complex balance between aprioristic constraints, defining body representations, and the on-line multisensory integration of touch, vision, proprioception, and interoception. How does the brain recognize own-body parts? Which mechanisms are implicated in the distinction between the own body and the others' body? How can we manipulate the body awareness in normal subjects? How can we make inferences on the normal functioning of the human brain starting from pathological alterations of body representation in neuropsychological disorders? 

​

See related ongoing grants here:

​

• BIAL FOUNDATION to Carlotta Fossataro

Project entitled: “How body ownership shapes tactile awareness: inducing phantom sensations and measuring their electrophysiological correlates in immersive virtual reality”

• SAN PAOLO FOUNDATION to Francesca Garbarini

​Project entitled “Heteromodal remapping in primary cortical areas: linking cellular mechanisms, circuits and behavior”

​

​

A fundamental component of the self-awareness is the sensation that we are acting with our own body. Through our movements, the body becomes a tool to act in the world and to interact with other individuals.  Thus, a coherent sense of self implies the existence of a tight link between the sense of body ownership and the motor system. Which mechanisms allow us to plan our own actions and to predict their consequences? Can programming, executing, and imaging movements be considered as distinct processes? How can we become aware of our actions? What can we infer from the pathological alterations of motor awareness in neuropsychological disorders?

​

See related past grants here:

​

• SIR-MIUR to Francesca Garbarini

Project entitled: “Project entitled “The body in human and monkey brain”​

External stimuli representing potential threats may suddenly approach the body. Therefore, for the sake of survival, a continuous assessment of environmental threat positions according to a body reference frame is essential to define a safety margin within which we have to protect our body. Which defensive mechanisms are we equipped with to defend the body? How does the brain combine the multimodal (sensory, motor, and proprioceptive) information coming from the body to provide an appropriate defensive response? How can we investigate and modulate the boundaries of the defensive peripersonal space? What can we infer from the observation of defensive mechanisms employed in pathological contexts?

Our body is constantly modelled by the interaction with the environment. Within the body, the brain is the organ better representing this adaptive ability. Simple experimental manipulations, such as the rubber hand illusion or prismatic adaptation, by providing incongruent or altered sensory inputs, may induce plastic effects in some specific brain areas. Within the motor system, the immobilization of a limb may modulate cortical excitability. Similarly, a tool repeatedly employed to perform a task may be embodied, thus widening the neural representation of the body, now including the tool and the space that can be reached through its use. Another promising research field is represented by the study of body and brain plasticity phenomena induced by altered gravitational inputs, such as microgravity conditions experienced by astronauts. How can we investigate such plastic effects and exploit these modulations to get further hints on how self-body representation is built and updated in the normal functioning brain?

The representation of our own body as a distinct entity from the environment is a fundamental component of our sense of self. Our MyFirstBody project (funded by ERC Starting Grant) aims at providing a comprehensive account of the ontogenetic development of the bodily-self representation, by translating the heuristics derived from the study of neuropsychological patients to a developmental perspective.

When, how and why do foetuses and infants learn the association among multisensory signals that allows the emergence of the bodily self representation? 

First, we will look for implicit signatures of the bodily-self representation emergence in prenatal and postnatal life, by describing the maturation of the crucial components identified through the study of neurological patients (WHEN).

Then, we will address the neural mechanism that underpins the bodily-self representation emergence (HOW) and the developmental context that leads to its normal and pathological growth (WHY).

​

See related past grants here:

​​

• SAN PAOLO FOUNDATION to Francesca Garbarini

Project entitled: “The body in human and monkey brain”​

​

See related past ongoing grants here:

​

• ERC Starting Grant to Francesca Garbarini

Project entitled: “My first body: bodily-self representation in normal and pathological developmental context”

​​