Kohei Umezawa

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About

Kohei Umezawa investigates the frontiers of bodily self-consciousness, focusing on how the human brain represents and incorporates artificial body parts. His key research area is the sense of bodily ownership over supernumerary limbs—additional limbs that move independently of the biological body. In his most cited work, an exploratory study published in 2022 (51 citations), Umezawa demonstrated that participants can experience a genuine sense of ownership toward an independent supernumerary limb, even when it provides its own movement feedback uncoupled from natural limbs. This finding challenges traditional models of body representation, which typically assume ownership requires alignment with existing body parts. By extending the rubber-hand illusion paradigm to independent supernumerary limbs, Umezawa’s research has significant implications for neuroprosthetics, rehabilitation, and human augmentation. His work shows that the brain’s plasticity can accommodate entirely new body parts, opening possibilities for designing assistive devices that feel like natural extensions of the self. Umezawa’s contributions are shaping how we understand the limits of bodily ownership and the future of human-machine integration.