The coding of naturalistic interpersonal touch features in the somatosensory system

Interpersonal touch is an important part of relationships. The goal of this project is to discover the neural basis of interpersonal touch within the somatosensory system.

The state-of-the-art research has made it clear there is a complex system in place to process the sensory features specific to interpersonal touch.

In this project, we will investigate 1) How are the physical features of interpersonal touch input encoded in peripheral nervous system? 2) Which brain regions process the sensory aspects of interpersonal touch, separate to non-sensory aspects? 3) How does the somatosensory system maintain robustness in processing naturalistic touch, and in what ways is it vulnerable to disturbances caused by injury or disease?

In order to answer these questions, we will develop a naturalistic touch stimulus set to reflect the statistics of naturalistic interpersonal touch.

We are in a unique position to do this, having recently measured the physical aspects of complex interpersonal touch expressions. We will investigate the relationship between the physical, sensory and affective aspects of interpersonal touch.

Data will include microneurography recordings from individual neurons in the peripheral nervous system, functional magnetic resonance imaging signals from the brain, and psychophysical judgments about sensory and affective aspects of touch from healthy volunteers, as well as patients with peripheral neuropathy and patients with stroke.