SCIENTISTS CREATE ‘GHOSTS’ IN LAB

LONDON: In a first, Swiss researchers have succeeded in recreating a ghost illusion in a lab. Patients suffering from neurological or psychiatric conditions have often reported feeling a strange “presence” that is felt but unseen, akin to a guardian angel or a demon. Researcher Olaf Blanke’s team at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland was able to recreate the illusion of a similar presence in the lab and provide a simple explanation. They showed the “feeling of a presence” results from an alteration of sensorimotor brain signals, which are involved in generating selfawareness by integrating information from our movements space.