All parts of the brain › Functions › Self-awareness

What part of the brain controls self-awareness?

No single part: thinking about yourself runs along the brain’s inner midline, through the medial prefrontal cortex, the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex and the precuneus, while the anterior insula gives you a felt sense of your own body. [1][2][3]

The insula, the cingulate gyrus, the prefrontal cortex and the superior parietal lobule lit in red on a 3D model of the brain, seen from the front left and above

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Lit: whole parts; region borders not drawn.

Slice

All 4 parts are lit together. Drag to turn, pinch or scroll to zoom, tap a part on the brain or a name in the list to focus it; .

In a meta-analysis of 87 studies only the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex responded more to your own name or face than to a familiar person’s; the medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortex answered to both. [1][2][3]

The anterior cingulate cortex and the precuneus are regions on the lit parts, not separate shapes. The 3D model draws only whole gyri and lobes, so the part that holds each area is lit; the area’s exact border is not drawn.

Medial prefrontal cortex is a region on the prefrontal cortex, not a separate shape. The 3D model has no shape for it, so the whole prefrontal cortex is lit; the region’s exact border is not drawn.

Self-awareness: 4 parts lit

Insula, cingulate gyrus, prefrontal cortex and superior parietal lobule. Tap one to see where it is and what it does.

The parts and their roles

Interoception, sensing the inside of your body: when people judged the timing of their own heartbeat, right anterior insula activity predicted how accurately they did it, and its grey-matter volume tracked their accuracy and how aware of their body they felt. A review proposes the anterior insula, which re-represents such signals, as a basis for subjective feelings and awareness. [4][3] Where is the insula?
Holds the anterior cingulate cortex, whose perigenual part was the one midline region specific to the self (your own name or face, not a familiar person’s) in a meta-analysis of 87 studies and 1,433 people; that activity overlapped the default mode network at rest. Its rear, the posterior cingulate cortex, answered to self and familiar people alike. [2] Where is the cingulate gyrus?
Its medial part, the medial prefrontal cortex, was selectively engaged when people judged whether trait words described themselves rather than another person, and medial prefrontal activity appeared for self-related material across verbal, spatial, emotional and face studies. [5][1] Where is the prefrontal cortex?
Its inner face is the precuneus, linked in imaging to self-processing, taking a first-person perspective and the experience of agency; magnetic pulses over the medial parietal cortex made people slower to retrieve earlier judgements about themselves than about others. [6][7][8] Where is the superior parietal lobule?

Named areas on the lit parts

Anterior cingulate cortex, on the : On the cingulate gyrus; its perigenual part responded to the self more than to familiar people in a meta-analysis of 87 imaging studies. [2]
Precuneus, on the : The inner (medial) part of the superior parietal lobule; functional imaging links it to reflective self-awareness, such as rating your own personality traits against other people’s. [8][6]
Medial prefrontal cortex, on the : the inner face of the prefrontal cortex; a separate spot here was engaged only when people judged words about themselves. [5]

How they work together

Self-related processing runs along the cortical midline: every study in a meta-analysis of imaging studies on the self found medial cortex active for self-related material, falling into ventral, dorsal and posterior clusters whatever the task. [1]
These midline regions overlap substantially with the default mode network, the regions active when you rest and are not focused on the outside world; the medial parietal hub was needed to retrieve judgements about yourself. [9][2][7]
Body awareness is one root of self-awareness: interoception is the perception of internal bodily states, and heightened interoceptive sensitivity has been linked to stronger emotional self-awareness. [9][3]
The mirror test, whether an animal touches a mark on its own body that it can see only in a mirror, is a simple measure of self-awareness; elephants, bottlenose dolphins and magpies are among the animals that pass it. [9]
Honest limit: these are networks seen in imaging, not single centres; self-awareness has no agreed seat, much of the midline activity also answers to familiar people, and the anterior cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex and precuneus are regions on lit parts, so whole parts are lit, not exact borders. [2][1][10]

Keeping your own feeling apart from someone else’s is part of empathy: the empathy page lights the right supramarginal gyrus that does this. [11] What part of the brain controls empathy?

The midline regions of self-awareness overlap substantially with the default mode network, which lights the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus with the angular gyrus, hippocampus and temporal cortex. [9] Where is the default mode network?

Sources

Facts describe anatomy and normal function only. A part lit here takes part in self-awareness; it does not do it alone, and it does other jobs too. The 3D model is the adult male BodyParts3D brain (credits and licence); on it the brainstem includes the midbrain, pons and medulla, so lighting the brainstem lights all three.