ELSEVIER Available online at www.sciencedirect.com SCIENCE DIRECT® Consciousness and Cognition 14 (2005) 661-678 Consciousness and Cognition www.elsevier.com/locate/concog Where in the brain is the self? b Todd E. Feinberg a,*, Julian Paul Keenan a Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The Yarmon Neurobehavior and Alzheimer's Disease Center, Beth Israel Medical Center, USA Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory, Montclair State University, USA Received 19 October 2004 Available online 2 March 2005 Abstract Localizing the self in the brain has been the goal of consciousness research for centuries. Recently, there has been an increase in attention to the localization of the self. Here we present data from patients suffering from a loss of self in an attempt to understand the neural correlates of consciousness. Focusing on delu- sional misidentification syndrome (DMS), we find that frontal regions, as well as the right hemisphere appear to play a significant role in DMS and DMS related disorders. These data are placed in the context of neuroimaging findings. 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Self; Brain; Self-awareness; Delusional misidentification syndrome; Asomatognosia; Capgras; Neuro- imaging 1. Introduction Along with the explosion of interest in the biological basis of consciousness, scientists have be- come increasingly interested in the neurobiology and neuroscience of the self. Indeed, it is difficult if not impossible to imagine consciousness without some form of self as a subject of that con- sciousness, and therefore, without selves, consciousness as we usually understand it cannot exist. As noted by John Searle: * Corresponding author. E-mail address: tfeinberg@bethisraelny.org (T.E. Feinberg). 1053-8100/$ - see front matter @ 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2005.01.002
662 T.E. Feinberg, J.P. Keenan | Consciousness and Cognition 14 (2005) 661-678 We know furthermore that all such conscious states are subjective in the sense that they only exist as experienced by a human or animal subject. Conscious states require a subject for their very existence. They do not exist in a neutral or third-person fashion, they have an existence that depends on their first-person subjective qualities, and that is just another way of saying that a conscious state must always be someone's conscious state (Searle, in press). But what is the "self"? Is it "real" in the sense that a brain is real? Kant was a firm believer in the existence of the self and he placed a primordial and unified ego at the center of his philosophy. William James on the other hand argued in his The Principles of Psychology that the "Ego" was nothing but "a 'cheap and nasty' edition of the soul." Although James conceded that selves exist, he denied that there is anything that could be called an "I" or "ego" at their center. He argues that all that really existed were passing states of consciousness, and our belief in ourselves as unified beings is due to the fact that we experience successive mental states in our stream of consciousness that are uniquely our own. Indeed, James asserted that if several independent minds shared a common experience and past, one could