Scientists have uncovered the mystery of the phenomenon of ghosts

It turns out that the feeling of being close to someone invisible beings (ghosts, angels or demons) may be associated with distortions of sensory-motor signals in the brain. Such signals are involved in the formation of self-consciousness, gathering information about his movements and the location of the body in space. The results of the new experiment presented in the journal Current Biology, as briefly reported in a press release of the Federal Polytechnic school of Lausanne.

Group the form of Olaf (Olaf Blanke) from the Federal Polytechnic school of Lausanne, have reconstructed the sensory-motor apparatus so that people began to perceive these signals are not as their own, but as coming from someone else's body. For starters, researchers examined using magnetic resonance imaging of the brain of 12 patients suffering from disorders of the nervous system, primarily from epilepsy — they all had the experience of meeting with the "ghosts". Violations found in the three brain regions: the insular cortex, parietal-frontal cortex and temporo-parietal cortex. All these areas are responsible, in particular, for self-awareness, movement and proprioception (a sense of self in space).

Then neuroscientists have conducted a "dissonant" experiment: volunteers are blindfolded waved a hand in front of him. Behind them the same moves made by the robot by touching their backs. When patients are accustomed to the robot, the researchers broke the synchronicity of movements of machine and man. Such time delay (500 milliseconds) was enough to create the illusion of a ghostly presence.

The experiment participants were not informed about his tasks. Three minutes after delays in the movements of the robot scientists asked the patients how they feel. The same was told that next to them, someone appeared. Some volunteers have counted up to four ghosts. For some, these feelings were so strong that they asked to stop the experiment.

"Our brain has several sources of information about the location of the body in space. Under normal circumstances, a person gathers from them, the whole image itself. But when the system fails — when the disease or, in this case, because of the actions of the robot in humans, there is a second image of his body, which is perceived not as "I", and how the presence of the "other"," explains the study's lead author Giulio Ranjini (Giulio Rognini).

Neuroscientists emphasize that their discovery is unlikely to cause someone to stop believing in ghosts. But for scientists, this was another proof that ghosts exist only in the mind of man.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»