iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

10/10 Take-home message: The current evidence does not support the idea that the Rubber Hand Illusion is a reliable analgesic tool in healthy participants. Understanding how body ownership and pain interact remains an important challenge for neuroscience and pain research.

100

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

9/10 Importantly, these findings do not mean body ownership is irrelevant for pain. Previous work suggests bodily illusions can alter where pain is experienced or localized, even if they do not reliably change pain intensity.

100

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

8/10 This challenges a common assumption in the body representation literature: that changing body ownership automatically changes how much pain we feel.

100

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

7/10 The result remained robust across sensitivity analyses and different experimental approaches. We found no consistent evidence that inducing ownership over a rubber hand reliably attenuates pain.

110

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

6/10 Our meta-analysis found a pooled effect size of Hedges' g = 0.036. In other words: essentially no overall effect of the Rubber Hand Illusion on pain perception.

100

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

5/10 These studies used different kinds of pain stimulation (heat, pressure, laser-evoked pain, etc.) and different versions of the illusion, including tactile, thermal, and nociceptive variants.

100

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

4/10 We systematically searched the literature and identified 13 studies containing 22 independent experiments that tested whether the RHI changes pain perception in healthy participants.

100

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

3/10 The problem? Findings across studies have been all over the place. Some reported pain reductions, some reported increases, and others found no effect at all. We wanted to determine what the literature as a whole actually shows.

100

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

2/10 The RHI occurs when a visible rubber hand and your hidden real hand are stimulated in synchrony, creating the feeling that the rubber hand is part of your body. Many researchers have suggested this altered sense of ownership might reduce pain.

100

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

🧵1/10 New paper out! In collaboration with @brainself.bsky.social and Karin Jensen! We systematically reviewed and meta-analyzed studies testing whether the Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI), the classic body ownership illusion, reduces pain in healthy participants. Short answer: the evidence says no.

173

Sara Coppi @saracoppi.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Looking forward to giving a short talk today at ~16:20 at #BRNET2026 in Palazzo Bo, Padova! I'll discuss the influence of body ownership on visuonociceptive interactions in peripersonal space and what it can tell us about how we process potential threats. See you! 🧠 #BodyOwnership #PeripersonalSpace

031

Reposted by Sara Coppi

Brain, Body, and Self Lab @brainself.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

In our new iScience study led by Sara Coppi, we show that during the rubber hand illusion, pain is mislocalized toward the rubber hand. This nociceptive drift reveals how pain, like other senses, is integrated into the bodily self. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40546968/

071