MSc Projects on Interoception, Affective Touch and and Self-Other Cognition
Katerina Fotopoulou’s Lab
(a.fotopoulou@ucl.ac.uk)
Number: 7 Projects are available for the 2014-5 year
Suitability: MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive and Decision Sciences, Research Methods in
Psychology and Social Cognition, UCL
Locations: Experimental Lab in Hunter Street, Meetings in Torrington Place; some projects will take
place at the IoP, KCL, Denmark Hill
Ethical Approval: is Available – Application for amendment may be needed in some cases
Topic: Interoception, Affective Touch and Self-Other Cognition
It has long been proposed that bodily self-consciousness relies on an integrated representation
of multiple streams of sensory information. However, scientific work has focused almost exclusively on
the integration of exteroceptive signals, such as vision and touch. Only recently has empirical research
revealed the importance of interoceptive mechanisms underpinning bodily self-awareness. Specifically,
interoception, the perception of the physiological condition of the body, seems to lie at the core of
selfhood. It is thought to rest on a separate specialized interoceptive system that is associated with the
autonomic nervous system and has been related to the generation of subjective feelings. Interoception
involves representations from multiple modalities such as temperature, itch, pain, cardiac signals,
respiration, hunger, thirst, pleasure from sensual touch and other bodily feelings. In these projects we
will be looking at cardiac awareness, pain but mostly focusing on affective touch. How does affective
touch contribute to the bodily self? Which particular sensory, affective and interpersonal features
convey relevant information for the construction of a sense of embodied selfhood?
It appears that when we are touched at the physical boundary of the body, that is the skin, our
brain forms two sets of partly independent representations about this single experience. On the one
hand, the tactile stimulus is processed in terms of its exteroceptive, discriminatory processes in classical
peripheral pathways and somatosensory cortical areas, while on the other hand, a specialized peripheral
and central system seems to code for the affective properties of the same stimulus. Indeed, the recent
neurophysiological evidence that is reviewed suggests the existence of a dual touch system consisting of
two parallel neural pathways: one for purely sensory touch, composed of skin mechanoreceptors
projecting to the thalamus and primary somatosensory cortex and another for affective touch (Olausson
et al., 2002; Vallbo, Olausson, & Wessberg, 1999). The affective touch system is thought to rely on a
distinct subgroup of mechanoreceptors, tactile C-fibres, responding only to slow (between 1-10 cm/s),
caress-like touch, with activation being correlated with pleasantness ratings on visual-analogue scales
(Löken, Wessberg, Morrison, McGlone, & Olausson, 2009). What is more, C-tactile afferents take a
distinct ascending pathway from the periphery to a different part of the thalamus and then to the
posterior insular cortex (Morrison et al., 2011; Olausson et al., 2002). The latter pathway is considered
as mediating an early convergence of sensory and affective signals about the body, which are then rerepresented in the mid and anterior insula: the proposed sites of interoceptive awareness (Craig, 2009;
Critchley et al., 2004). This duality at the neurocognitive level seems to lead to a number of
psychological dualities at the core of our embodied self-consciousness, such as the inside-outside and
the self-other distinctions. In the available projects we will be exploring some of the affective properties
of sensual touch, its interaction with other modalities, its role in emotion and its relation with social
cognition and attachment.
Required Skills: The greater the background in experimental methods, statistics and computing, the
better. But hard work and team spirit is what we are after.
Required commitment: Students must be motivated and prepared to work flexibly, efficiently
independently after training and proactively when it comes to recruitment. Some of the projects will
require an early start of data collection with the students dedicating at least 2 days a week on data
collection. They could then perform the statistical analysis and write up with calm over the spring and
summer months. The students will be responsible for leading the day to day running of these projects
and they will form an integral part of the research team.
Skills to be acquired, educational and CV value and benefits of the Lab: The projects offer an excellent
opportunity to engage in cutting-edge and hands-on research in a neuroscientific lab. You will get
training in the design, programming and implementation of behavioural experiments, and depending
the particular project also on EEG, administration of neuropeptides , and NHS patient work, as well as
introduction to data analysis tools and methods. All students will be invited to lab meetings and they will
be paired with an experienced PhD or postdoctoral researcher, who will introduce them to the details of
each project. These researchers and Dr. Fotopoulou will read all students’ theses and provide feedback.
In our lab we do not adjust our studies to the level of an Msc degree. Instead we believe that if an Msc
student is willing and able they can contribute significantly to studies that merit publication in
international journals of well standing. This is perhaps why most Msc students that finished their
projects with us, have been our co-authors in impactful papers.
Related References
Craig, A. D. (2003). Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Curr Opin
Neurobiol, 13(4), 500-505.
Craig, A. D. (2009). How do you feel--now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nat Rev
Neurosci, 10(1), 59-70.
Crucianelli, L., Metcalf, N. K., Fotopoulou, A. K., & Jenkinson, P. M. (2013). Bodily pleasure matters:
velocity of touch modulates body ownership during the rubber hand illusion. Front Psychol,
4, 703.
Krahe, C., Springer, A., Weinman, J. A., & Fotopoulou, A. (2013). The social modulation of pain:
others as predictive signals of salience - a systematic review. Front Hum Neurosci, 7, 386.
Loken, L. S., Wessberg, J., Morrison, I., McGlone, F., & Olausson, H. (2009). Coding of pleasant touch
by unmyelinated afferents in humans. Nat Neurosci, 12(5), 547-548.
Olausson, H., Wessberg, J., Morrison, I., McGlone, F., & Vallbo, A. (2010). The neurophysiology of
unmyelinated tactile afferents. Neurosci Biobehav Rev, 34(2), 185-191.
Sambo C, Howard M, Williams S, Kopelman M, & Fotopoulou A. (2010). Knowing that you care:
Effects of perceived empathy and attachment style on pain. Pain, 151, 687–693