, 2011; Marcel, Tegner & Nimmo-Smith, 2004). It is currently unclear and debated to what extent these phenomena are manifestations of independent abnormalities, or the same primary deficit or a combination of deficits. Adding to the complexity is the fact that AHP appears in the context of a number of concomitant sensorimotor and cognitive impairments. During the 1980s and 1990s studies in cognitive neuropsychology attempted to establish whether any of these deficits MI-503 cell line or any given combination of deficits could explain the occurrence of one or more

of the above anosognosic phenomena. While, however, several primary sensorimotor deficits and many higher order deficits such as intellectual impairment, memory loss, confusion, reasoning deficits, dysexecutive symptoms, visuospatial or, personal neglect, have all been reported frequently in patients with AHP, double dissociations between AHP and most of these deficits have been noted in both acute and chronic AHP (e.g., Bisiach, Vallar, Perani, Papagno & Berti, 1986; Marcel et al., 2004). In response, some authors proposed multi-factorial theories of AHP, arguing Dabrafenib supplier for example that deficits in inferential reasoning may prevent sensorimotor deficits before from being ‘discovered’ (Levine,

1990; Levine, Calvanio & Rinn, 1991), or their discovery may not be ‘remembered’ (Cocchini, Beschin & Della Sala, 2002). These explanations of AHP have now been tested in several studies (e.g., see Marcel et al., 2004; Vocat, Staub,

Stroppini & Vuilleumier, 2010 for exceptionally well-conceived studies) and although they have not been equivocally supported, they remain relevant today (e.g., compare Prigatano & Schacter, 1991 with Prigatano, 2010). This understanding of AHP as the secondary consequence of one or more concomitant neuropsychological deficits was however challenged by the progressive establishment of cognitive neuroscience during the 1990s. As topics such as consciousness, awareness, and the self entered the mainstream of cognitive neuroscience, scientists faced the challenge of a scientific understanding of self-consciousness. Advocates of what is generally known as the embodied cognition approach in philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience (e.g., Bermúdez, Marcel & Eilan, 1995; Clark, 1996; Damasio, 1994, 2000; Gallagher, 2005; Varela et al., 1991), opted for distinguishing between several kinds and levels of self-consciousness and postulating a bodily ‘core’ or ‘minimal’ self, as the common denominator of all other facets of self-consciousness.