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The Agent Brain: A Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Studies on Sensing Agency

According to philosophy of mind and neuroscientific models, the sense of agency can be defined as the sense that I am the one that is generating an action and causing its effects. Such ability to sense ourselves as causal agents is critical for the definition of intentional behavior and is a primary...

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Autores principales: Crivelli, Davide, Balconi, Michela
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5701922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29209181
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00229
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author Crivelli, Davide
Balconi, Michela
author_facet Crivelli, Davide
Balconi, Michela
author_sort Crivelli, Davide
collection PubMed
description According to philosophy of mind and neuroscientific models, the sense of agency can be defined as the sense that I am the one that is generating an action and causing its effects. Such ability to sense ourselves as causal agents is critical for the definition of intentional behavior and is a primary root for human interaction skills. The present mini-review aims at discussing evidences from non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) studies targeting functional correlates of different aspects of agency and evidences on the way stimulation techniques affect such core feature of human subjective experience. Clinical and brain imaging studies helped in defining a neural network mediating agency-related processes, which includes the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), the cingulate cortex (CC), the supplementary and pre-supplementary motor areas (SMA and pre-SMA), the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and its inferior regions and the cerebellum. However, while the plurality of those structures mirrors the complexity of the phenomenon, their actual roles with respect to different components of the experience of agency have been primarily explored via correlational techniques, without a clear evidence about their causal significance with respect to the integration of sensorimotor information, intentionalization, and action monitoring processes. Therefore, insights into the specific causal role of different cortical structures can be specified by using NIBS techniques, in order to provide improved understanding into the bases of our ability vs. inability to properly act in complex social contexts.
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spelling pubmed-57019222017-12-05 The Agent Brain: A Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Studies on Sensing Agency Crivelli, Davide Balconi, Michela Front Behav Neurosci Neuroscience According to philosophy of mind and neuroscientific models, the sense of agency can be defined as the sense that I am the one that is generating an action and causing its effects. Such ability to sense ourselves as causal agents is critical for the definition of intentional behavior and is a primary root for human interaction skills. The present mini-review aims at discussing evidences from non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) studies targeting functional correlates of different aspects of agency and evidences on the way stimulation techniques affect such core feature of human subjective experience. Clinical and brain imaging studies helped in defining a neural network mediating agency-related processes, which includes the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), the cingulate cortex (CC), the supplementary and pre-supplementary motor areas (SMA and pre-SMA), the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and its inferior regions and the cerebellum. However, while the plurality of those structures mirrors the complexity of the phenomenon, their actual roles with respect to different components of the experience of agency have been primarily explored via correlational techniques, without a clear evidence about their causal significance with respect to the integration of sensorimotor information, intentionalization, and action monitoring processes. Therefore, insights into the specific causal role of different cortical structures can be specified by using NIBS techniques, in order to provide improved understanding into the bases of our ability vs. inability to properly act in complex social contexts. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-11-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5701922/ /pubmed/29209181 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00229 Text en Copyright © 2017 Crivelli and Balconi. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Crivelli, Davide
Balconi, Michela
The Agent Brain: A Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Studies on Sensing Agency
title The Agent Brain: A Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Studies on Sensing Agency
title_full The Agent Brain: A Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Studies on Sensing Agency
title_fullStr The Agent Brain: A Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Studies on Sensing Agency
title_full_unstemmed The Agent Brain: A Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Studies on Sensing Agency
title_short The Agent Brain: A Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Studies on Sensing Agency
title_sort agent brain: a review of non-invasive brain stimulation studies on sensing agency
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5701922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29209181
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2017.00229
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