Dr M. Callens: Experimental neurophysiological data with regard to the clinical neurological concept of corporal scheme

The concept of corporeal scheme is of clinical origin but until now clinical neurological analysis all but proved its existence without being able to elucidate its very nature. Neurophysiology also can at present only very little contribute to its elucidation. Neurophysiological experiments support clinical experience in that corporeal awareness exists, that it is the result of an interplay of exteroceptive information with an endogeneously determined corporeal scheme and that the Jatter one exists independently from all exteroceptive and proprioceptive information. This endogeneous corporeal scheme can be considered as a strategy determining organization of the parietal lobe with respect to exteroceptive information.
On the other hand neurophysiological analysis of the asomatognostic syndromen does not fully support clinical conviction that they are primarily due to disturbances of the corporeal scheme. There is some neurophysiological evidence that the asomatognostic syndromen are at least in part due to disturbances of verbal communication about corporeal awareness instead of being primary disturbances of the corporeal scheme. For this reason clinical asomatognostic syndromen are not ideally suited for the study of the corporeal scheme unless verbal communication is by-passed.