Sense of Agency (SoA) (SoA)
The term Sense of Agency (SoA) refers to a conscious function of the symbolic control system in humans ( NeuroNames ). "Functional MRI (fMRI) studies ( Zito-2020; Abdulkarim-2023) show that the sense of agency—the subjective experience of controlling an action and its external outcome—relies on excitatory sensorimotor pathways linking the top, perceptual level of the bottom-up sensory hierarchy (network) with the top level of the top-down motor control hierarchy (network) to produce conscious cognitive attribution of agency for the movement to the intuited referent of the conscious percept.
Core Neural Pathways (Networks)
• Sensorimotor integration: Motor prediction and feedback comparison engage the supplementary motor area (SMA), precentral gyrus, and cerebellum. [1, 2]
• Attribution and awareness: Inferring self-agency and evaluating goal congruency activate the inferior parietal lobule (IPL), supramarginal gyrus, and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). [1, 2]
• Contextual processing: Processing environmental or social context recruits the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) to update predictive models. [1, 2]
Role of Context and Objects
• Contextual cues: Higher-order contextual information shapes explicit agency judgments via frontomedian and prefrontal pathways, even when low-level sensorimotor loops are ambiguous. [1, 2]
• Contextual objects: Objects associated with specific scenes or actions (such as tools in a workspace) modulate activity in the lateral occipital complex (LOC) and action-observation networks, helping the brain determine whether an environmental change belongs to self or others. [1, 2] ( Google AI-2026 in NeuroNames Standard Nomenclature ).
Also known as: Sense of Agency
NeuroNames ID: 6780
