Review/ Praca poglądowa The rest is not me. . . An attempt to explain xenomelia – Neurodevelopmental hypothesis A reszta to już nie ja. . . Próba wyjaśnienia xenomelii – hipoteza neurorozwojowa Przemysław Nowakowski 1 , Anna Karczmarczyk 2, * 1 Ośrodek Badań Filozoficznych w Warszawie, Poland 2 Zakład Kognitywistyki i Epistemologii, Instytut Filozofii UMK w Toruniu, Poland p o s t Ę p y p s y c h i a t r i i i n e u r o l o g i i 2 5 ( 2 0 1 6 ) 1 9 6 – 2 0 8 a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received: 01.03.2016 Accepted: 22.08.2016 Available online: 31.08.2016 Keywords:  Xenomelia  Bodily consciousness  Development of self- consciousness  Social neuroscience Słowa kluczowe:  xenomelia  świadomość ciała  rozwój samoświadomości  neuronauki społeczne a b s t r a c t Aim: Article introduces xenomelia – a disorder of bodily experience that manifests itself in the feeling of disownership related to one of the limbs that a patient wants to remove. For a dozen of years, xenomelia has been investigated by psychiatrists and neurologists; yet, there is no agreement on its medical definition or diagnostic criteria. Recently, it has been proposed that apart from neuroanatomical factors that contribute to bodily aware- ness, social factors may determine xenomelia as well. In the paper, we investigate a social neuroscience view in developmental perspective. Perspective: We believe that the neurodevelopmental approach is the one that presents xenomelia in the most com- plex way. We propose to examine changes in bodily experiences related to social events that emerge during periods sensitive to development of multimodal neuronal representa- tions of the body. We indicate that crucial changes occur in the adolescence, when social environment seems to have extremely powerful impact on self-consciousness and self- esteem. Conclusions: We demonstrate that xenomelia is a disorder of multifactorial aetiology. In order to explain it, we need to investigate social influence on the develop- ment of self-consciousness (and bodily consciousness). We highlight the periods that in our view are critical for the development of one’s own body representations. We point to the neuronal representations related to self that undergo major changes during adoles- cence as we believe they have great impact on shaping bodily consciousness. We also believe that further investigations on neural body maps in infants may tell us more about the possible factors that affect xenomelia. © 2016 Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology. Published by Elsevier Sp. z o.o. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: Instytut Filozofii UMK, ul. Fosa Staromiejska 1a, 87-100 Toruń, Poland. Tel.: +48 790438290. E-mail address: a_karczmarczyk@o2.pl (A. Karczmarczyk). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pin http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pin.2016.08.002 1230-2813/© 2016 Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology. Published by Elsevier Sp. z o.o. All rights reserved.