Description du sujet de thèse

The PhD student will conduct neurophysiological and perceptual experiments on healthy humans to investigate how deep, massage touch is encoded and felt. S/he will use the technique of microneurography to record from single axons in human peripheral nerves during different types of stimulation of the skin. These will be coupled with psychophysical experiments to better understand the sensations related to massaging touch and the data will be modeled computationally in partnership with researchers at the University of Virginia.

Contexte de travail

The person will be based at the Centre for Research in Psychology and Neuroscience (CRPN), located on the Saint-Charles campus in Marseille. They will be part of the SomatoSense team, which focuses on the peripheral and central mechanisms involved in the coding and interpretation of touch.
The PhD student will recruit healthy participants to participate in neurophysiological experiments, during which recordings will be made from the peripheral nerves of the arm and/or leg. Various tactile stimuli, from gentle to massaging touch, will be applied to the skin, and neural responses will be measured. They will analyze these responses and summarize the results in scientific articles. In parallel, they will also conduct similar psychophysical experiments to determine the perceptual experience of different types of touch, including analyzing these data and writing up the results in articles.

Contraintes et risques

No constraints or risks are foreseen.