Respiratory rhythm affects recalibration of body ownership

Change in body perception requires recalibration of various sensory inputs. However, it is less known how information other than sensations relates to the recalibration of body perception. Here, we focused on the relationship between respiration and cognition and investigated whether respiratory rhythms are related to the recalibration of hand perception. We built a visual feedback environment, in which a mannequin hand moved in conjunction with its own respiratory rhythm, and participants performed an experiment under conditions in congruency/incongruency for spatial and temporal factors. The temporal and spatial congruency between own respiratory rhythm and the mannequin hand markedly facilitated the phenomenon of hand ownership sense transfer to the mannequin hand, while incongruency had little effect on the change in hand ownership. The finding suggests that an internal model in the brain allows respiratory rhythms to be involved in the adaptation of the body's neural representations.

Automated summary

Change in body perception requires recalibration of sensory inputs. It is less known how other information relates to body perception recalibration. This study investigated the relationship between respiration and hand perception recalibration. Results showed that temporal and spatial congruency between respiratory rhythm and mannequin hand facilitated hand ownership transfer, while incongruency had little effect. The findings suggest that respiratory rhythms are involved in adapting the body's neural representations.