- LONDON (Reuters) - Swiss
scientists think they have pinpointed the area of the brain where out-of-body
experiences are triggered.
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- While they used electrodes to stimulate the brain of
a female epilepsy patient during treatment, the woman began describing
feeling as though she had left her body and was floating above it.
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- "I see myself lying in bed, from above," the
43-year-old patient told Olaf Blanke and his colleagues at the University
Hospitals of Geneva and Lausanne.
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- Blanke and his team produced the phenomenon by stimulating
an area in the right cortex of the brain called the angular gyrus, which
is involved in spatial cognition. How they did it is reported in the journal
Nature on Wednesday.
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- "It suggests that this experience is related to
a specific part of the brain," Blanke told Reuters. "It seems
to be that this area is important for brain processes that could be related
to out-of-body experience."
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- Scientists suspect that about 10% of people brought back
from the brink of death experience something similar, but it has been difficult
to prove it actually occurs.
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- The phenomenon has also been reported by some migraine,
epilepsy and stroke patients.
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- The Swiss researchers produced the sensation, which lasted
for about 2 seconds, three times in the patient. She reported feelings
of lightness and floating about 2 meters above the bed, close to the ceiling.
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- When Blanke's team asked the woman to look at a part
of her body from the heightened position, her legs for example, she had
illusions and reported seeing her legs "becoming shorter."
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- "She saw this. It was very real. She had the feeling
she punched herself in the head if she bent the arm a bit," Blanke
said.
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- The scientists suspect that the angular gyrus matches
up visual information, how the body is seen, and touch and balance sensations
that create the mind's representation of the body.
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- They believe an out-of-body experience may occur when
the two do not link up.
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- Blanke does not know why the phenomenon occurs in people
who have been near death but he said it could be due to a lack of oxygen
or a disconnection or malfunction of certain brain regions.
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- He hopes his work will stimulate more collaboration between
neurologists and scientists who have been involved in the phenomenological
approach, to better understand out-of-body experiences.
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