Social touch and acute pain may seem quite different, but both can be studied from the perspective of how they influence emotion, motivation, and behavior. Our work aims to advance our understanding of how the human brain enables such “affective” aspects of touch and pain, whether by the adaptive modification of behavior via actions (such as returning a fond caress), or by the regulation of bodily changes (such as heartbeat and hormone release).
The functional neuroanatomy of the human brain is fundamentally shaped by its interactions with the body, and each person’s brain is even further nested in its own set of social relationships. The Embodied Brain Lab aims to better understand the emotional and motivational aspects of touch and pain, while taking the bodily and social embedding of the human brain into account.
Social touch and acute pain may seem quite different, but both can be studied from the perspective of how they influence emotion, motivation, and behavior. Our work aims to advance our understanding of how the human brain enables such “affective” aspects of touch and pain, whether by the adaptive modification of behavior via actions (such as returning a fond caress), or by the regulation of bodily changes (such as heartbeat and hormone release).