PhD Louise P. Kirsch | What’s so special about touch? A multidimensional approach to study social touch

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.