From: UFO UpDates - Toronto <ufoupdates.nul>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:48:43 -0400
Archived: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:48:43 -0400
Subject: Scientists Discover 'Shadow Person'




Source: Cosmos Magazine - Strawberry Hills, New South Wales,
                          Austrlia

http://tinyurl.com/6cfj6c

Monday, 25 September 2006


Scientists Discover 'Shadow Person'

by Erica Harrison
Cosmos Online

SYDNEY -- Ever feel as though you're being followed? As if
someone is behind you, shadowing your every move? It might be
your 'shadow person', created by unusual activity in a specific
brain region, a new study shows.

The paper, published in the British journal Nature, describes the
case of a 22-year-old woman with no history of psychiatric
problems who was being evaluated for treatment of epilepsy. When
a region of her brain called the left temporoparietal junction
was electrically stimulated, the woman described encounters with
a 'shadow person' who mimicked her bodily movements.

"Electrical stimulation repeatedly produced a feeling of the
presence of another person in her extra-personal space", said
Olaf Blanke, co-author of the study conducted by a team of
researchers from University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland.

When the patient was lying down, stimulation of this brain region
caused her to feel that someone was behind her. She described the
person as young, of indeterminate sex, "a shadow who did not
speak or move, and whose position beneath her back was identical
to her own", according to the researchers.

When the patient sat up, leaned forward and clasped her knees,
she felt that the figure was also sitting, embracing her in its
arms - a feeling she described as "unpleasant".

During a language task, in which the seated patient held a card
in her right hand, she described the person sitting next to her
and trying to interfere with the task. "He wants to take the card
=85 he doesn't want me to read", she said.

Because it was possible to induce the sensation repeatedly, and
because the 'shadow person' closely mimicked the patient's
posture and movements, the researchers conclude that the patient
was experiencing a perception of her own body.

"The strange sensation that somebody is nearby when no one is
actually present has been described by psychiatric and
neurological patients, as well as by healthy subjects", said
Blanke. Until now, however, it was not understood how the
illusion was triggered in the brain.

The temporoparietal junction is known to be involved in creating
the concept of 'self', and the distinction between 'self' and
'other'. According to the researchers, stimulation of this region
interfered with the patient's ability to integrate information
about her own body, leading to her experience of a 'shadow
person'.

Although the woman was aware of the similarity between her own
movements and those of her doppelganger, she didn't recognise the
experience as an illusion of her own body.

Similar shadowy encounters have been described by people with
schizophrenia, as well as by healthy subjects, leading the
researchers to believe that: "Our findings may be a step towards
understanding the mechanisms behind psychiatric manifestations
such as paranoia, persecution and alien control."



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