Self-awareness—the ability to recognize oneself as an individual, distinct from the environment and others—lies at the core of human consciousness, identity, and social interaction. Emerging evidence suggests that disrupted self-awareness is a common and profoundly disabling feature in a variety of brain and psychiatric disorders, including but not limited to schizophrenia, dementia, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and mood disorders. These disruptions can manifest as anosognosia, lack of insight, depersonalization, or difficulties in autobiographical memory, severely affecting quality of life, prognosis, and treatment adherence.
Recent findings point to alterations in error processing—the brain’s capacity to detect and adjust to discrepancies between expected and actual outcomes—and in interoception—the sensing and interpretation of internal bodily states—as potential mechanisms underpinning these breakdowns of self-awareness. Deficits in these systems may compromise the monitoring of one’s own performance, distort the integration of bodily and cognitive signals, and hinder the updating of self-related beliefs, thereby contributing to persistent unawareness across different disorders.
This Research Topic aims to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms, manifestations, and clinical implications of disrupted self-awareness in brain and mind disorders. We welcome original research, reviews, and clinical case reports that address, but are not limited to, the following areas:
Neurobiological and cognitive underpinnings of self-awareness and its breakdown in neurological and psychiatric conditions
The role of error processing and interoception in maintaining or disrupting self-awareness
Clinical assessment tools and technology-based approaches (including digital phenotyping and AI-driven diagnostics) for identifying self-awareness disruptions
Impact of disrupted self-awareness on clinical outcomes, therapeutic engagement, and caregiver burden
Rehabilitation strategies and novel interventions leveraging artificial intelligence to improve or compensate for self-awareness deficits
Comparative and cross-disorder studies to elucidate shared vs. distinct pathways of self-awareness disruption
By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and integrating innovations such as AI in both research and clinical practice, this collection aims to accelerate progress towards better diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic approaches. We encourage contributions from neuroscientists, psychiatrists, psychologists, digital health innovators, and all allied fields.
Article types and fees
This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:
Brief Research Report
Case Report
Clinical Trial
Community Case Study
Conceptual Analysis
Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
Data Report
Editorial
FAIR² Data
Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.
Article types
This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:
Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
