Description du sujet de thèse

The features of the stimuli underlying the perceptual and hedonic responses still need understanding, while the possibility to simulate and restitute such signals is partially achieved. By controlling the physical or simulated tactile stimuli that originate at the skin-surface interface and analyzing the response of the cortex to these stimuli (Task 1.2. « Cognition »), will enable us to disentangle the problem relating to confounding variables that lead to a pleasurable emotion. We will use somatosensory-evoked potential techniques (EEG) and EEG sources analyses to determine the neural network activated by a pleasuring and unpleasant emotions.
Up to now, a few studies, and none taking into account inter-individuals differences, have been devoted to uncover the cascade of the whole emotional perception chain from the mechanical stimuli, through the signal conversion and transmission, up to the higher neural processes. We will test the hypothesis that emotion shaped by human personality and elicited when voluntary touching a surface (real or simulated) can alter sensory transmission (i.e. peripheral neural process, Task 2.1. « Firing ») and integration processes (e.g., cortical facilitation or attenuation of tactile inputs, Task 2.2. « Emotion »). We will determine the impact that one's cognitive states might have on the peripheral (Microneurography) and cortical sensory processes (EEG) during the elaboration of an emotional perception.

Contexte de travail

The work will be carried out under the joint supervision of Laurence Mouchnino at ISM, and co-supervisors Jean-Marc Aimonetti and Rochelle Ackerley at CRPN.
The research will be conducted both at ISM on the Luminy campus and at CRPN on the Saint Charles campus, and occasionally in other laboratories involved in the ANR EMOTACT project.

Contraintes et risques

None