Digital media have been repeatedly described as disembodying, virtualizing, or abstracting human experience. This article rejects that premise. It argues that the digital does not weaken embodiment but reorganizes it at a fundamental level. Drawing on embodied simulation and phenomenology, I propose a framework of radical aesthetics in which aisthesis—embodied, affective sense-making—is the primary condition of reality’s appearance. From this perspective, images and interfaces do not represent the world; they actively configure it. Digital environments modulate sensorimotor coupling, entrain affect through feedback loops, and pre-structure perception via algorithmic anticipation. What emerges is not a diminished reality, but a differently real—one governed less by resistance than by structured responsiveness. The digital self is thus not a disincarnate projection but an embodied process of aesthetic subjectivation shaped by regimes of visibility and recognition. To understand digital culture today, we must abandon the myth of disembodiment and confront mediation as the very ground of experience.

Before we name, we touch. We propose that the roots of language lie not in abstract, amodal symbols but in early bodily experience. Early haptic and oral interactions ground conceptual knowledge through active exploration. The mouth, acting as a cognitive organ, functions not only as a site of articulation but also as a locus of tactile perception and intersubjective exchange. We suggest that language may have evolved through the neural reuse of circuits originally dedicated to ingestion and action understanding. These circuits were progressively shaped by affordances, embodied simulation, and sound symbolism. From sensorimotor patterns to iconic vocal forms, we trace a pathway linking bodily experience to symbolic reference, through which language acquisition could arise.

Yawning is a phylogenetically preserved and highly stereotyped behavior observed across vertebrates.1 In humans, it emerges early in development, as it is already present prenatally.2,3 Qualitative studies show that fetal yawns display a structured motor pattern closely resembling adult yawns, suggesting a role in early sensorimotor organization,4,5 and they have been proposed to support the maturation of brainstem central pattern generators and early synaptic development.6,7 Due to its early emergence in development, prenatal yawning has largely been interpreted as driven by endogenous programs, whereas in postnatal life, yawning can also be shaped by the social context through contagion, a phenomenon linked to sensorimotor mirroring and affective attunement.8,9 Here, we tested whether prenatal yawning may also be modulated by maternal behavior. Using ultrasound recordings of fetal facial activity combined with controlled elicitation of maternal yawning, we show that fetal yawning selectively increases following maternal yawns but not during non-contagious control conditions. Temporal analyses reveal structured coordination between maternal and fetal yawning, and machine-learning classification identifies shared kinematic signatures across maternal and fetal yawns. These findings suggest that fetal yawning might also be embedded within a dyadic sensorimotor context in which maternal behavior shapes fetal expression, suggesting that forms of behavioral resonance and embodied alignment precede birth and contribute to the early foundations of social attunement.

Interpersonal motor interactions are central to social life, yet it remains unclear how social cues relevant to detecting engagement are encoded in the brain. Recent evidence suggests that regions traditionally associated with mentalizing, such as the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), co-activate with nodes of the Action Observation Network (AON) during motor engagement with others, pointing to a synergistic role in the processing of action features during interaction. Using fMRI and Representational Similarity Analysis (RSA), we examined brain responses to reach-to-grasp actions varying in Goal (passing vs. placing), Perspective (2nd vs. 3rd person), and Gaze visibility, creating a gradient of perceived engagement. Our results show TPJ-AON convergent representational geometry during action observation, with temporo-parietal and premotor regions, but not dmPFC, showing correlated dynamics of pattern modulation. Model-based analyses showed a graded organisation within the right temporo-parietal cortex, with perspective encoded in the rTPJ, goal-related information in superior temporal regions, and perceived engagement uniquely encoded in the rIPL. Moreover, the rTPJ and left premotor cortex shared representational geometry for action direction, linking mentalizing and sensorimotor systems in the encoding of first-person-relevant cues. In contrast, the dmPFC showed an isolated representational geometry and did not encode action features or perceived engagement, consistent with its recruitment during richer interactive contexts. Together, these findings support a distributed, sensorimotor account of engagement encoding and reveal new functional links among key social cognition areas.

The human brain continuously maps the space surrounding the body through a highly flexible system known as peripersonal space (PPS). This multisensory interface dynamically integrates visual, auditory, tactile, and proprioceptive information to guide interaction with the environment. Although PPS plasticity is well documented following tool-use, it remains unclear how the architectural properties of the surrounding environment modulate this process. Across two experiments using immersive virtual reality (VR), we investigated whether the shape of the environment affects PPS remapping after motor training with a tool. In Experiment 1, participants performed a validated visuo-tactile integration task before and after VR-based tool-use training, all within the same 16m² virtual room. Results showed a significant PPS expansion, confirming that immersive VR can reliably induce PPS plasticity. Experiment 2 tested whether environmental geometry modulates this effect: the same training was conducted in a long (2 × 8 m) and a short (8 × 2 m) virtual room. PPS expansion emerged only after training in the long-shaped environment, while no modulation was found in the short-shaped condition. These findings demonstrate that architectural features—specifically spatial openness and boundary proximity—directly influence the sensorimotor mechanisms underlying PPS plasticity. Our results highlight that the environment is not a passive background but an active component of embodied spatial representation, providing novel evidence for the integration of neurocognitive and architectural perspectives within the emerging field of neuroarchitecture.

Visual perception is a complex cognitive process that allows humans to extract meaningful information from their environment. Phototexts, artistic and literary compositions that integrate photographic and textual elements, offer a multimodal experience that requires readers to navigate between visual and linguistic modes of interpretation. This study investigates, in naïve participants, the influence of spatial layout configuration, emotional content, enjoyment, and attentional focus on the visual exploration of phototexts. Using eye-tracking technology, we examined participants' gaze patterns, focusing on metrics such as first fixation latency and fixation distribution across areas of interest (AOIs). Additionally, we explored the presence of left-gaze bias in text-photo stimuli systematically counterbalanced to mitigate positional effects. Our findings reveal key aspects of oculomotor behavior, as well as explicit preferences and judgments regarding phototext perception. Eye-tracking data indicated a natural reading bias, with shorter fixation latencies for text regardless of position, alongside a left-gaze bias that emerged specifically for photographs. Interestingly, attention patterns evolved dynamically over time, with an initial focus on text shifting toward the photographic component as viewing progressed. By analyzing phototexts as complex multimodal stimuli, this study provides novel insights into their synergistic effects on attention distribution and perceptual engagement.

Introduction: Social exclusion affects patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) both because of a fundamental disposition to introversion and through social discrimination. Here, we explore the emotional and cardiac autonomic responses to ostracism using a ball-tossing experiment. Methods: Through a cross-sectional design, 30 patients with SCZ and 30 healthy controls (HC) performed the Cyberball task. We measured respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) at baseline, immediately after each gameplay (inclusion and ostracism) and after 10 minutes (reflective stage), as well as self-reported ratings of threats toward one’s fundamental need to belong. Results: Participants with SCZ showed reduced RSA at baseline, which remained low for the task’s entire duration, regardless of the experimental condition. When excluded, they self-reported a lower sense of threat to fundamental needs, as compared with HC. Conclusions: Patients with SCZ showed a persistent defensive autonomic state and displayed a blunted emotional response to experimental ostracism, suggesting difficulties in activating social engagement strategies.

The human brain has evolved a highly plastic system to map the space immediately surrounding the body: the peripersonal space (PPS). This system dynamically expands in response to sensorimotor stimulation, adapting to new action possibilities and environmental contexts. However, little is still known about the mechanisms driving PPS plasticity. In this study, we systematically investigated the sensory, motor, spatial and bodily posture determinants of PPS plasticity (PPSp) in a comprehensive design of 4 experiments with 289 participants. Our findings reveal distinct and complementary roles for each determinant, showing that PPSp is influenced by motor and spatial determinants, while sensory and bodily posture determinants do not exert a significant influence on its plastic properties. These results thus establish PPSp as a multimodal, effector-dependent, multi-frame and posture-invariant system. These findings determine PPSp as a dynamic and adaptive system, finely tuned through evolution to support ever-changing interactions with both physical and social environments.

The progressive affirmation of the bodily-relational paradigm arouses resistance. That the mind is relational, embodied and situated; that empathy is prelinguistic and pre-intentional; that the observer is within the observed system-these are consolidated insights based on experimental evidence. Building on these insights, empathy in the therapeutic relationship shows how the relationship between epistemology and practice is redefined, seeking the conditions for a practice based on the ongoing pursuit of engagement and detachment, proposing one of the most advanced perspectives to consider.

Multisensory integration is a fundamental principle of brain function, yet its prenatal origins remain largely unknown. Using Doppler ultrasonography in 58 uncomplicated singleton pregnancies (28–32 weeks of gestation), we examined fetal cerebrovascular responses to unimodal visual, unimodal vibrotactile, and bimodal visuo-vibrotactile stimulation across the anterior, middle, and posterior cerebral arteries. Visuo-vibrotactile stimulation did not elicit a uniform response: it selectively reduced pulsatility index in the PCA while increasing it in the ACA, with MCA responses remaining close to baseline. This anterior-posterior dissociation was confirmed by a significantly negative PCA-ACA shift index and reproduced by end-diastolic velocity changes with the expected opposite sign. Multisensory benchmark analyses revealed an artery-specific profile consistent with selective non-additive modulation rather than nonspecific paired-stimulation effects, while fetal heart rate remained stable across conditions. The convergence of hemodynamic measures and the absence of cardiac or baseline differences suggest a genuine cerebrovascular response rather than generalized arousal. These findings reveal that convergent sensory input can shape fetal cerebral hemodynamics in utero, identifying a rudimentary but spatially organized form of prenatal cross-modal sensitivity and suggesting that the foundations of multisensory integration begin to emerge before birth.

This essay proposes a radical reconsideration of the concept of empathy in theory and in clinical practice, shifting its focus from a cognitive and representational conception to an embodied, inter-corporeal and transformative perspective. Far from being a simple relational technique, empathy is here understood as an original modality of affective co-experience, which emerges from the shared field between analyst and patient. Through a dialogue between psychoanalysis, phenomenology and neuroscience, the bodily foundations of the therapeutic relationship are outlined, and the interpretive primacy of the classical tradition is criticized. Empathy, as a form of aisthesis, makes possible a clinical practice centered on sensitive listening, affective regulation and co-construction of meaning. The essay argues that only a truly embodied paradigm can restore to care its relational, intersubjective, human and transformative dimension.

The prenatal period is a critical window for the emergence of sensorimotor coordination and early relational processes. Within this framework, yawning—a stereotyped behavior linked to arousal regulation and social contagion—offers a unique opportunity to explore maternal-fetal relationships before birth. While contagious yawning has been extensively studied in postnatal contexts, its presence and developmental role in utero remain unexplored. This study investigated whether fetal yawning behavior is modulated by maternal yawning, suggesting a primitive form of behavioral contagion within the dyad. Thirty-six pregnant participants were exposed to video stimuli designed to elicit yawns, while fetal facial movements were recorded using 2D ultrasound. Maternal and fetal yawning frequencies were analyzed across four conditions: baseline, maternal still-face, maternal mouth opening/closing movements, and maternal yawning. Fetal and maternal time series were further examined using Cross Recurrence Quantification Analysis (CRQA), and an LSTM-based neural network was employed for automated behavioral classification. Results showed a significant increase in fetal yawns following maternal yawning, but not during control conditions, indicating selective behavioral responsiveness. CRQA revealed enhanced temporal structure in true mother-fetus dyads compared to shuffled pairs, suggesting non-random coordination. The LSTM model accurately distinguished yawning from other facial actions, supporting the reliability of the behavioral data. These findings provide the first evidence of prenatal yawning contagion and support the notion that behavioral alignment may reflect embodied mechanisms of attunement that precede postnatal social engagement, offering new insights into the developmental origins of intersubjectivity.

Building on the centrality of the Narcissus myth and its cultural and psychological implications, the notion of primary narcissism is discussed against the backdrop of neurobehavioural research on the development of the Self. While the concept of primary narcissism emphasises egocentrism, contemporary research suggests a different understanding of the early stages of self-experience. As Freud anticipated, there is a continuum between pre- and post-natal life: early social connections and relationships, beginning in the womb, shape the developing self. This continuum invites the investigation of foetal life to understand the development of a coherent pattern of relationships with the world. The active engagement of foetuses and infants with the outside world is the primum movens of the stages that enable them to live in the world. The quality of postnatal mother-infant relationships and their co-regulation originate in the womb. This suggestion about foetal social life can be seen in part as a development of some of the original insights of psychoanalysis. While emphasizing the importance of narcissism in understanding the Self and its relationship to society, a broader perspective on the early constitutive elements of the Self is needed.

Successful motor coordination in social interactions requires the rapid interpretation of others' intentions from their actions. Previous research suggests that individuals use early bodily cues, such as movement kinematics and gaze, to predict others' behaviour. However, the motor features critical for signaling or decoding potential motor interactions remain unclear. In this study, we measured the kinematics of a basic motor act - grasping an object - executed with either individualistic (to place) or social (to pass) intentions. Subsequently, we conducted two action prediction tasks to identify bodily markers of (social) intentions. Hand positioning on the object emerged as a key kinematic indicator of the intention to interact with a partner, as shown by kinematic analyses and classification of participants' responses. Eye-tracking analysis revealed the face as the most attended feature during action observation. Notably, these cues were more consistently attended to when observing actions from a frontal - second-person - perspective rather than a lateral - third-person - perspective. Our findings highlight the saliency of hand-object interactions and the face in decoding potential engagement in second-person contexts. They also provide novel evidence for social affordance processing, expressed in action execution and observation, related to potential motor interactions with others. These features in decoding potential engagement in motor interactions.

Background/Objectives: Fake pain expressions are more intense, prolonged, and include non-pain-related actions compared to genuine ones. Despite these differences, individuals struggle to detect deception in direct tasks (i.e., when asked to detect liars). Regarding neural correlates, while pain observation has been extensively studied, little is known about the neural distinctions between processing genuine, fake, and suppressed pain facial expressions. This study seeks to address this gap using authentic pain stimuli and an implicit emotional processing task. Methods: Twenty-four healthy women underwent an fMRI study, during which they were instructed to complete an implicit gender discrimination task. Stimuli were video clips showing genuine, fake, suppressed pain, and neutral facial expressions. After the scanning session, participants reviewed the stimuli and rated them indirectly according to the intensity of the facial expression (IE) and the intensity of the pain (IP). Results: Mean scores of IE and IP were significantly different for each category. A greater BOLD response for the observation of genuine pain compared to fake pain was observed in the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC). A parametric analysis showed a correlation between brain activity in the mid-cingulate cortex (aMCC) and the IP ratings. Conclusions: Higher IP ratings for genuine pain expressions and higher IE ratings for fake ones suggest that participants were indirectly able to recognize authenticity in facial expressions. At the neural level, pACC and aMCC appear to be involved in unveiling the genuine vs. fake pain and in coding the intensity of the perceived pain, respectively.

Questo saggio propone una riconsiderazione radicale del concetto di empatia nella teoria e nella pratica clinica, spostandone il fulcro da una concezione cognitiva e rappresentazionale a una prospettiva incarnata, intercorporea e trasformativa. Lontana dall'essere una semplice tecnica relazionale, l'empatia è qui intesa come modalità originaria di co-esperienza affettiva, che emerge dal campo condiviso tra analista e paziente. Attraverso un dialogo tra psicoanalisi, fenomenologia e neuroscienze, si delineano le basi corporee della relazione terapeutica e si critica il primato interpretativo della tradizione classica. L'empatia, in quanto forma di aisthesis, rende possibile una clinica centrata sull'ascolto sensibile, sulla regolazione affettiva e sulla co-costruzione di senso. Il saggio sostiene che solo un paradigma realmente incarnato può restituire alla cura la sua dimensione relazionale, intersoggettiva, umana e trasformativa.

BACKGROUND:Anorexia nervosa, restricting subtype (AN-R), is a severe psychiatric disorder, with abnormal interoception, autonomic nervous system disturbances, and increased exposure to childhood traumatic experiences (CTEs), frequently observed as correlates. This is the first study exploring the impact of CTEs and heart rate variability (HRV; i.e., an index reflecting parasympathetic arousal) on interoceptive accuracy (IA; i.e., the ability to track changes in bodily signals) in AN. METHODS:Twenty-five patients with AN-R within a year of onset and 25 matched healthy controls were recruited. IA was assessed through the heart beat detection task. HRV was measured before and after the task. Participants also completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. We performed a to detect significant differences between groups in HRV reactivity and IA, and a linear regression to test the effect of factors of interest on IA. RESULTS:Patients with AN-R displayed significantly increased HRV reactivity and decreased IA compared to HCs. They also reported significantly more CTEs. Furthermore, childhood emotional neglect significantly predicts IA impairments. CONCLUSIONS:Although the pathway linking emotional neglect to abnormal interoception in AN-R remains to be clarified, an embodiment-informed framework may show promise in the treatment of individuals with eating disorders who experienced childhood maltreatment.