From Tapas Basu, Indian Statistical Institute
Out-of-body experience (OBE) is an intriguing and controversial topic on which there are only a handful of publications. In their letter (11 April, p 22), Eric Altschuler and Vilayanur Ramachandran claim that their 2007 paper (Perception, vol 36, p 632) was the “first to report a method to perceive being outside of one’s body”.
However, as early as 2002, Olaf Blanke and others induced OBEs by focal electrical stimulation of the brain’s right angular gyrus in a patient undergoing treatment for epilepsy (Nature, vol 419, p 269). They suggest that “the angular gyrus could be a crucial node in a larger neural circuit that mediates complex own-body perception”.
• The OBE felt by the patient in Blanke’s study was limited to observation of her legs and lower trunk, omitting other body parts.
Kolkata, India
