PhD Louise P. Kirsch | Whats so special about touch? A multidimensional approach to study social touch
Guest Lecture
- Date: Oct 12, 2020
- Time: 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: PhD Louise P. Kirsch
- Research Associate, ISIR, Sorbonne Universite, Paris, France Honorary Research Associate, University College London, UK
- Location: MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
- Room: Zoom Meeting
- Host: Department of Neurology
At the boundary between the body, the environment and others, touch is a
key path for social interactions. Indeed, touch enables the
transmission of pro-social and emotional signals that cannot be
communicated through other sensory modalities. Thus, touch is important
in myriad social situations, but often neglected. Moreover, research
have shown a specialized pathway for affective touch, the CT system. In
this talk, I will be putting together the results of recent studies
shedding some lights on: (i) the crucial role of the insula in
perceiving affective touch; (ii) the role of touch in buffering feelings
of social isolation and rejection, especially in this time of forced
social distancing; and (iii) a new way of measuring skin-to-skin
interactions.