Meet the research: Katerina Fotopoulou

Katerina heads KatLab, a group of researchers that focus on topics and disorders that lie at the borders between neurology and psychology and challenge any rigid distinction between mind and body.

Katerina’s research aims to understand the interface between mental and somatic health and ultimately advance the treatment of related health disorders, including unawareness following a stroke, functional motor and eating disorders. KatLab is particularly interested in understanding how our embodiment, including the rooting of the mind in our embodied interactions with other people for example touch, influence the function of our brain and ultimately shape how we understand ourselves and our new experiences. For example, we have found that prosocial, affective touch can reduce the perception of both physical and psychological pain, as can the neuropeptide oxytocin. Social touch can also increase our awareness of our own body in health and disease. More generally, Katerina uses behavioural, electrophysiological, neuroimaging and pharmacological methods to study body feelings, sensorimotor signals and related body representations in healthy individuals and in patients with neurological and psychiatric disorders.