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Peter Brugger

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Swiss neuroscientist Peter Brugger of the University Hospital in Zürich has come up with a new theory on "ghosts" and "doppelgängers" (A doppelgänger is ghost of a living person, usually the viewer). Brugger, whose idea is detailed in an upcoming edition of New Scientist magazine, thinks the viewer is experiencing a "phantom of the entire body" just in the same way an amputee might experience a "phantom limb." The limb is no longer there, but the brain still tells the amputee it is. Brain damage can cause this effect, but people with normal brains may have the effect triggered by intense emotions such as fear, sadness, or euphoria. Brugger reports that mountain climbers who have experienced oxygen deprivation at about 27,000 feet have reported feeling a "presence" or having an out-of-body experience.

In September 2005, a team of mainly Swiss neuroscientists, including Brugger, reported the finding that they could trigger out-of-body experiences in subjects by stimulating a part of the brain.

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References

Olaf Blanke et al.: Linking out-of-body experience and self processing to mental own-body imagery at the temporoparietal junction. The Journal of Neuroscience, January 19, 2005, 25(3):550-557; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2612-04.2005.[1]

Category: Swiss neuroscientists