What is a Self? How does our brain generate the conscious experiencer of our lives? What is the relation between the physical self - the body - and the mental self? Jane Aspell aims to tackle these thorny questions lying at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology and philosophy. She does this by creating 'out of body' illusions using video-based virtual reality setups, by measuring the integration of multisensory exteroceptive and interoceptive bodily signals, and by testing neurotypical participants, participants with autism, participants with depersonalisation and participants with chronic pain. Her research probes both outside- and inside-bodily experience to investigate the brain bases of bodily self-consciousness. Her studies have been funded by the Bial Foundation, The British Academy, The Leverhulme Trust, Versus Arthritis, the Wellcome Trust and The Urology Foundation.
VR experiment
Experiencing a body illusion
