Self-Recognition Process in the Human Prefrontal Cortex

“What is self?” or “Where is self?”––for a long time, many academics have been discussing various problems associated with the complex and ambiguous existence of the “self.” In recent years, a number of neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural basis of the self-recognition processes. In this chapter, we classify the self into two types, “bodily self” and “mental self,” and review the studies on the brain regions associated with self-recognition. First, we pick up sense of ownership and sense of agency as the bodily self. These abilities are assumed to be based on the brain regions that process the visual-perceptual information about body parts and that match the visual and proprioceptive information with the movement information in premotor cortex. Second, self-representation, which is one of the main parts of the mental self, is known to be involved with medial prefrontal cortex and cortical midline structure. Additionally, to maintain the sense of self, we continuously have to integrate information about ourselves without the distinction between bodily and mental self. In the “integrated self,” the brain regions that receive and process sensory input from the body and the prefrontal cortex that carries out higher-order cognitive functions have an important role.