Investigating the Neural Base of Hearing One's Own Name by fMRI

Toshiki Nakane^1,2, Miyakoshi Makoto², Toshi Nakai², Shinji Naganawa¹

We performed an fMRI study to separate the effect of attention from self-referential processes. For this purpose, three categories of names, namely one's own, repeated, and unfamiliar, were presented as stimuli, followed by high or low beep sounds. Participant's task was to judge one's own/repeated or unfamiliar (attended task), and to judge beep high or low (unattended task). Results showed fCMS involvement when both self-relevance AND attention were needed. We concluded that fCMS is not always sensitive to self-relevance, but only when self-relevance is task-relevant.