Programme

Professor Sarah Garfinkel

Title: Dissociating dimensions of interoception

Abstract: Interoception is the process by which the nervous system senses, integrates and interprets internal bodily sensations, such as signals arising from the heart. Affective and emotional feeling states are influenced by different levels of interoceptive processing. These levels encompass afferent, neural, behavioural accuracy and higher-order measures related to interoceptive judgments ascertained via subjective report and the attribution of bodily signals. This talk will detail how these different interoceptive dimensions, at different levels of processing, can guide and shape cognition and emotion processing. The nature of afferent signals, their representation in brain, their precision and higher order representation are selectively altered in different clinical conditions, with implications for symptom expression.

Bio: Sarah Garfinkel is Professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, where she leads the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Group. She completed her PhD in Experimental Psychology the University of Sussex, before undergoing a fellowship in Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the University of Michigan. At the Brighton and Sussex Medical School she underwent further training in autonomic neuroscience before transitioning to UCL in September 2020. Her current work focuses on brain-body interactions underlying emotion and cognition in clinical groups, with a particular focus on the heart.

Dr Sophie Betka

Title: Relationship between breathing motor adaptation and breathing agency: a combined physiological, neuroimaging and VR-based study

Abstract: Is breathing a movement like any other? Can we experience a feeling of agency over breathing movements? We recently designed a novel virtual reality-based visuo-respiratory paradigm allowing the investigation of breathing sensorimotor control and breathing agency. During the task, participants are embodied in a 3-D avatar which is breathing either in synchrony (no-delay condition) or with an additional normalized delay (varying from 1/8 to 9/8 of their breathing cycle duration). An MRI version of the paradigm has also been tested. During my talk, I will first show you our latest data on the relationship between breathing motor adaptation and conscious breathing agency and will then present the neural correlates of such phenomena. I will conclude my presentation by discussing the important implications of such work.

Bio: Dr Sophie Betka is a qualified neuropsychologist. After obtaining her bachelor and master in Neuropsychology and Clinical Neuroscience at both universities of Lille &Grenoble, Dr Betka joined as a doctoral student the team of Prof. Hugo Critchley at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. During her PhD, she conducted a series of studies to explore the relationship between emotional regulation and interoception. She gained deep insights into physiology (e.g., ECG, beat-to-beat systolic blood pressure), neuroimaging techniques (e.g., fMRI, MRS), rigorous methodology and advanced statistical methods. Then, Dr Sophie Betka joined as a postdoctoral researcher the LNCO led by Prof. Olaf Blanke at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne. There, she was awarded the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship for her proposal entitled "RESPVR". In her research project she is approaching breathing and breathing function in a novel theoretical and experimental framework linking sensorimotor processes of breathing to sensorimotor aspects of bodily self-consciousness, by combining virtual reality & neuroimaging. Recently, within the ATIP-Avenir program 2022, Dr Betka has been selected to create and lead her own team, in the Inserm laboratory of Prof. Thomas Similowski from La Pitié-Salpétrière in Paris. There, she plans to pursue her work looking at the relationship between breathing motor adaptation, agency and breathing comfort.

Professor Tony Prescott

Title: “I, Robot”. Evo-devo and robotics perspectives on the emergence of subjectivity and feeling

Abstract: Subjectivity and cognitive feelings have emerged in evolution in the layered nervous systems of metazoan animals, closely coupled to their environments through bounded bodies, and organised to generate adaptive behaviour that maintains life and supports reproductive fitness. Analysis of mammalian nervous systems as layered control architectures suggests an important role for autonomic and subcortical motivational and body awareness systems in scaffolding the development of other aspects of self-hood including awareness of self as persisting in space and time, awareness of others, and the experience of self as subject (the “I”). This talk will consider the evolution and development of this control architecture, and its role in generating subjectivity and feeling, drawing on insights from computational and robotic modelling, and posing the question “what would be required for a robot to have a sense of self”?

Bio: Tony Prescott (him/his) is a Professor of Robotics at the University of Sheffield who develops robots that resemble animals including humans. His goal is both to advance the understanding of biological life and to create useful new technologies such as assistive and educational robots. With his collaborators he has developed several animal-like robots including the commercial pet-like robot MiRo-e which is currently in use for research and education. His research focuses on understanding the neural and behavioural underpinnings of active perception, motivation, memory, and sense of self combining both analytic (experimental) and synthetic (computational and robotic modelling) approaches. He also works on human-robot interaction and the ethical and societal impacts of robotics and AI technologies. He has published over 200 refereed articles and journal papers, is lead editor of “The Living Machines Handbook: Research in Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems” published by Oxford University Press, and co-founder of two robotics start-ups and of the “Living Machines” international conference series.