How your brain sees virtual you

November 9, 2009 | Source: New Scientist Life

MRI brain scans of 23-hours-a-week players of the online fantasy world World of Warcraft game reveal that areas of the brain involved in self-reflection and judgement — the medial prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex — seem to behave similarly when someone is thinking about their virtual self as when they think about their real one, Dartmouth University researchers have found.