The extrastriate cortex distinguishes between the consequences of one's own and others' behavior

The extrastriate body area (EBA) is traditionally considered a category-selective region for the visual processing of static images of the human body. Recent evidence challenges this view by showing motor-related modulations of EBA activity during self-generated movements. Here, we used functional MRI to investigate whether the EBA distinguishes self- from other-generated movements, a prerequisite for the sense of agency. Subjects performed joystick movements while the visual feedback was manipulated on half of the trials. The EBA was more active when the visual feedback was incongruent to the subjects' own executed movements. Furthermore, during correct feedback evaluation, the EBA showed enhanced functional connectivity to posterior parietal cortex, which has repeatedly been implicated in the detection of sensorimotor incongruence and the sense of agency. Our results suggest that the EBA represents the human body in a more integrative and dynamic manner, being able to detect an incongruence of internal body or action representations and external visual signals. In this way, the EBA might be able to support the disentangling of one's own behavior from another's. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.