Lukas Heydrich
Papers
3
Total Citations
780
H-Index
3
About
Lukas Heydrich is a leading cognitive neuroscientist whose research explores the neural foundations of bodily self-consciousness, with a particular focus on how the brain constructs our sense of self-location, first-person perspective, and body ownership. His seminal 2011 paper, "Multisensory Mechanisms in Temporo-Parietal Cortex Support Self-Location and First-Person Perspective," which has garnered 474 citations, established the temporo-parietal junction as a critical hub for integrating multisensory signals to create a coherent self. Heydrich further advanced the field by demonstrating how damage to the posterior insula and extrastriate cortex can produce distinct illusory own-body perceptions (158 citations), revealing the dissociable neural substrates underlying different aspects of self-awareness. In a particularly striking line of work, he used neurological patients and robot-controlled stimulation to experimentally induce the sensation of an apparition—a "doppelgänger"—showing that the feeling of a presence can be artificially generated through sensorimotor conflict (148 citations). Heydrich’s innovative use of virtual reality, robotics, and brain imaging has fundamentally reshaped our understanding of how the brain generates the experience of being a unified self in a body.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1
- 2
- 3Neurological and Robot-Controlled Induction of an Apparition148 citations · 2014