Swedish researchers create body-swap illusion

Researchers using closed-circuit televisions to create an illusion have made volunteers virtually swap bodies, even making women believe they were in a man's body and vice-versa.

The experiment, reported in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE on Tuesday, shows it is possible to manipulate the human mind to create the perception of having another body, the Swedish researchers said.

It helps explain how humans understand the limits of their own bodies, Valeria Petkova and Henrik Ehrsson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm reported.