H. Henrik Ehrsson

Research

Henrik Ehrsson is a cognitive neuroscientist investigating one of the most fundamental questions in neuroscience : how does the brain generate the feeling that our body belongs to us? His research identifies the multisensory mechanisms by which the central nervous system distinguishes between sensory signals from one’s own body and those from the external world, revealing how the integration of vision, touch, proprioception, and interoception gives rise to the sense of body ownership.

By elucidating these mechanisms, Ehrsson’s work provides a foundation for understanding the neural basis of body ownership. This research has far-reaching implications, informing clinical neuroscience, cognitive psychiatry, and human–technology interaction. Insights from his multisensory model of body ownership are being applied to the development of advanced prosthetic limbs, virtual and mixed-reality avatars, and teleoperated robotic systems that more closely replicate the natural sense of embodiment. His experimental paradigms have also demonstrated that the feeling of owning a body can be transferred, extended, or even swapped between individuals, offering a powerful window into the flexible and dynamic nature of the human self.

Born in Sweden in 1972, Henrik Ehrsson studied medicine and obtained his PhD in 2001 and his MD in 2002 at Karolinska Institutet. Following a four-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, he returned to Karolinska Institutet as an assistant professor in 2008 and was appointed full professor in 2013. He has published more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific papers, including articles in Science, Neuron, PNAS, Current Biology, Nature Communications, and The Journal of Neuroscience. According to Web of Science (October 14, 2025), his publications have been cited 14,938 times and his H-index is 62.

Academic Prizes

Göran Gustafsson Prize in Medicine (2017), Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Hans Wigzell Prize (2016), Karolinska Institutet

Ingvar Carlsson Award (2006), Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research

Noteworthy Grants and Awards

Distinguished Professor Grant, Swedish Research Council (2017)

Advanced Grant, European Research Council (2017)

Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition, James S. McDonnell Foundation (2010)

Future Research Leader Grant, Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (2008)

Career Development Award, Human Frontier Science Program (2007)

Selected Publications

Lanfranco RC, Katyal S, Hägerdal A, Luan X, & Ehrsson, H. H. Conscious awareness, sensory integration, and evidence accumulation in bodily self-perception. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 In Press

O'Kane SH, Chancel M, Ehrsson HH. Hierarchical and dynamic relationships between body part ownership and full-body ownership. Cognition. 2024 May;246:105697. PDF

Coppi S, Jensen KB, Ehrsson HH. Eliciting the rubber hand illusion by the activation of nociceptive C and Aδ fibers. Pain. 2024 Oct 1;165(10):2240-2256. PDF

Abdulkarim Z, Guterstam A, Hayatou Z, Ehrsson HH. Neural Substrates of Body Ownership and Agency during Voluntary Movement. J Neurosci. 2023 Mar 29;43(13):2362-2380. PDF

Chancel M, Ehrsson* HH, Ma* WJ. Uncertainty-based inference of a common cause for body ownership. Elife. 2022 Sep 27;11:e77221. *shart senior authors PDF

Chancel M, Iriye H, Ehrsson HH. Causal Inference of Body Ownership in the Posterior Parietal Cortex. J Neurosci. 2022 Sep 14;42(37):7131-7143. PDF

Guterstam A, Larsson DEO, Szczotka J, Ehrsson HH. Duplication of the bodily self: a perceptual illusion of dual full-body ownership and dual self-location. R Soc Open Sci. 2020 Dec 9;7(12):201911. PDF

Guterstam A, Collins KL, Cronin JA, Zeberg H, Darvas F, Weaver KE, Ojemann JG, Ehrsson HH. Direct Electrophysiological Correlates of Body Ownership in Human Cerebral Cortex. Cereb Cortex. 2019 Mar 1;29(3):1328-1341. PDF

Kilteni K, Andersson BJ, Houborg C, Ehrsson HH. Motor imagery involves predicting the sensory consequences of the imagined movement. Nat Commun. 2018 Apr 24;9(1):1617. PDF

Kilteni K, Ehrsson HH. Body ownership determines the attenuation of self-generated tactile sensations. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Aug 1;114(31):8426-8431. PDF

Guterstam A, Björnsdotter M, Gentile G, Ehrsson HH. Posterior cingulate cortex integrates the senses of self-location and body ownership. Curr Biol. 2015 Jun 1;25(11):1416-25. PDF

Bergouignan L, Nyberg L, Ehrsson HH. Out-of-body-induced hippocampal amnesia. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Mar 25;111(12):4421-6. PDF

Gentile G, Guterstam A, Brozzoli C, Ehrsson HH. Disintegration of multisensory signals from the real hand reduces default limb self-attribution: an fMRI study. J Neurosci. 2013 Aug 14;33(33):13350-66. PDF

Kalckert A, Ehrsson HH. Moving a Rubber Hand that Feels Like Your Own: A Dissociation of Ownership and Agency. Front Hum Neurosci. 2012 Mar 14;6:40. PDF

Petkova VI, Björnsdotter M, Gentile G, Jonsson T, Li TQ, Ehrsson HH. From part- to whole-body ownership in the multisensory brain. Curr Biol. 2011 Jul 12;21(13):1118-22. PDF

van der Hoort B, Guterstam A, Ehrsson HH. Being Barbie: the size of one's own body determines the perceived size of the world. PLoS One. 2011;6(5):e20195. PDF

Ehrsson HH, Rosén B, Stockselius A, Ragnö C, Köhler P, Lundborg G. Upper limb amputees can be induced to experience a rubber hand as their own. Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3443-52. PDF

Petkova VI, Ehrsson HH. If I were you: perceptual illusion of body swapping. PLoS One. 2008;3(12):e3832. PDF

Ehrsson HH. The experimental induction of out-of-body experiences. Science. 2007 Aug 24;317(5841):1048. PDF

Ehrsson HH, Spence C, Passingham RE. That's my hand! Activity in premotor cortex reflects feeling of ownership of a limb. Science. 2004 Aug 6;305(5685):875-7. PDF

Selected Book Chapters 

Ehrsson HH (2022). Bodily illusions. In A. J. T. Alsmith & M. R. Longo (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Bodily Awareness (pp. 201-229). New York: Routledge. PDF

Ehrsson HH. Multisensory processes in body ownership. In: Sathian K, Ramachandran VS, eds. Multisensory Perception: From Laboratory to Clinic. Academic Press: Elsevier; 2020:179-200. PDF

Ehrsson HH. The concept of body ownership and its relation to multisensory integration. In: The New Handbook of Multisensory Processes, B.E. Stein (Ed.) (2012) pp 775-792, MA: MIT Press (Cambridge) PDF


Click here for a comprehensive list of publications, here for a feature article on Henrik Ehrsson's work, and here for a lecture given to undergraduates at the Karolinska, and here for a TEDx talk in Gothenburg for the general public