Overview
- Karolinska Institutet reports peer-reviewed findings in Nature Communications linking alpha wave timing in the parietal cortex to bodily self-perception.
- Across 106 participants, faster alpha frequencies corresponded to narrower temporal binding windows and more precise ownership judgments, while slower rhythms broadened the window.
- Experiments used the rubber hand illusion to vary visuotactile synchrony and included simultaneity judgment tasks to quantify temporal precision.
- Targeted electrical stimulation that modulated alpha frequency produced measurable changes in both body-ownership ratings and perceived simultaneity of visual and tactile signals.
- The team highlights implications for understanding disturbed self-experience in psychiatry and for improving prosthetic control and virtual reality, noting that further replication is needed.