Common recruitment of angular gyrus in episodic autobiographical memory and bodily self-consciousness

Abstract

Parietal cortex and adjacent parts of the temporal cortex have recently been involved in bodily self-consciousness (BSC) and in episodic autobiographical memory (EAM). However, the neuroanatomical relationship between both fundamental aspects of self-related processing remains currently unexplored. Here we investigated whether regions in the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) that have been involved in BSC (self-location and first-person perspective) are also activate in studies investigating autobiographical memory. To examine this relation, we performed a meta-analytical study based on functional neuroimaging studies on EAM and SAM and compared them with BSC activations. We report an anatomical overlap bilaterally in the angular gyrus (AG), but not in other parietal or temporal lobe structures between BSC and EAM. Moreover, there was no overlap between BSC and SAM, suggesting that the bilateral AG is a key structure for the conscious re-experiencing of past life episodes (EAM) and the conscious on-line experience of being located and experiencing the world in first-person (BSC).