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Håkan Olausson

Professor

Research

The Morrison Lab: The Embodied Brain Lab.

The Olausson Lab

Human touch is a powerful way of evoking emotions. What is the functional significance of the system for ultrafast nociceptors that we recently discovered? How does the nervous system distinguish social and self-touch? Our lab is looking for answers.

See the video about our research that can lead to new treatments for chronic pain

To map the pathways of pain and help cure everything from chronic pain to headaches, Håkan Olausson's team at Linköping University measures various pain impulses. Håkan and his research group have discovered that pain signals travel much faster than previously thought and that pain fibers are present throughout the entire body.

Håkan Olausson is interviewed during a study.
See the video on Youtube.

News

How the nervous system distinguishes social touch

Two types of neurons in the skin may be particularly important for how the brain interprets social contact between people. Knowledge of how the nervous system processes social touch is important in order to develop ways to restore sensation.

A researcher is working together with a test subject.

Our sense of touch consists of 16 unique types of nerve cells

No less than 16 different types of nerve cells have been identified by scientists in a new study on the human sense of touch. Comparisons between humans, mice and macaques show both similarities and significant differences.

A researcher is holding an instrument and examining an arm.

Research about skin sensation gave insights into pain

Håkan Olausson’s breakthrough research has partially upset the textbook description of the nervous system. His research group recently discovered a previously unknown component of the human pain-signalling system.

Publications

Latest publications generated through LiU DiVA

2024

Huasheng Yu, Saad Nagi, Dmitry Usoskin, Yizhou Hu, Jussi Kupari, Otmane Bouchatta, Hanying Yan, Suna Li Cranfill, Mayank Gautam, Yijing Su, You Lu, James Wymer, Max Glanz, Phillip Albrecht, Hongjun Song, Guo-Li Ming, Stephen Prouty, John Seykora, Hao Wu, Minghong Ma, Andrew Marshall, Frank L. Rice, Mingyao Li, Håkan Olausson, Patrik Ernfors, Wenqin Luo (2024) Leveraging deep single-soma RNA sequencing to explore the neural basis of human somatosensation Nature Neuroscience (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Oumie Thorell, David Mahns, Jan Otto, Jaquette Liljencrantz, Mats Svantesson, Håkan Olausson, Saad Nagi (2024) Experimental nerve block study on painful withdrawal reflex responses in humans PLOS ONE, Vol. 19, Article e0309048 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI
Morgan Frost-Karlsson, Andrea Johansson Capusan, Håkan Olausson, Rebecca Böhme (2024) Altered somatosensory processing in adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder BMC Psychiatry, Vol. 24, Article 558 (Article in journal) Continue to DOI

Organisation