Falling in love with the somatosensory (and visual) system

Speaker: Dr Elisabetta Versace

Summary

After decades of neglect, I have recently started to pay attention to the somatosensory system. It all began with a study on baby chicks, where we discovered that soon after hatching, they can match tactile and visual information at first sight, while falling in love with an imprinting object.

Then I realised how central this system is for defining our world and its boundaries, including perceiving objects that we cannot touch directly, a phenomenon called remote touch, initially discovered in birds.

In this talk, I will tell you why I find somatosensation a very inspiring cognitive interface to the external and internal world, discussing fundamental research and some potential medical applications.

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