Influence of odors on pleasant touch perception

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Ilona Croy
• Subject Area: Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology
• Term: from 2013 to 2014
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 244747802

The project aims to study the influence of odors on pleasant touch perception. Pleasant touch is a very basic sensation with implications for all kind of social relationships, especially to intimate partners and to children. The sensory neurons that code pleasant touch perception are called C-tactile afferents. Those neurons are located in human hairy skin and respond to innocuous, mechanical stimuli and are most vigorously activated by pleasant touch, as microneurography studies could show. C-tactile coded touch perception is very robust even for long times of stimulation. I want to determine how the perception of touch as being pleasant can be modulated by odors. It is known that odors are powerful emotion elicitors. They are easily able to influence mood, can carry information about the emotional state of others and play an important role in mate choice. Therefore, I hypothesize that odors influence the perception of pleasant touch.Two studies are carried out to examine this: a psychophysical experiment and an fMRI Study. In both studies the participants are stimulated by a robot with C-tactile relevant touch, which is preceded by three different kinds of odors: a disgusting one; a pleasant one and a neutral one for control purpose. For the psychophysical experiment the participants are asked to rate the perceived pleasantness of the touch, for the fMRI study the activation of brain areas coding the interaction of odor and touch is analyzed. In result, the project will lead to an understanding of sensory integration of pleasant touch and olfaction. Furthermore, I hope it opens the door to a better understanding of psychosomatic diseases that go along with disturbance in pleasant touch perception, like obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorder or autism.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Sweden
• Host: Professor Dr. Hakan Olausson