Explain what the following have added to our understanding of what self-awareness is: body image, mirror neurons, split-brain surgery, and DID.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The sense of self includes multiple components. Identity and the sense of agency, body image, mirror neurons, and memory all further contribute to the sense of self. A person's body image is their representation of their form and is disrupted in amputees with phantom limbs who continue to experience sensations from a body part that no longer (or never was) part of their body. Mirror neurons, which display similar activity patterns when you and someone you are observing engage in an action, contribute to the differentiation of our self from others. Theory of mind appears to depend in part on the activity of mirror neurons. One way that scientists have been able to better understand consciousness is by studying patients who show disruptions of consciousness, such as patients who have undergone split-brain surgery and people diagnosed with DID. From patients who had the corpus callosum severed, we have discovered that the right and left brain hemispheres likely contribute differently to consciousness, with the left brain hemisphere taking a role in potentially interpreting behavior. In DID, scientists have further determined that memory structures such as the hippocampus are important to maintaining a sense of who we are; with damage to the hippocampus and amygdala, patients can lose that consistent sense of self.