Profile
Project Title: Skin-mediated Thermal Sensation and Emotional processing in Parkinson’s Disease patients and healthy elderly individuals.
Summary: Emotional processing, interoception and thermal sensation are interconnected aspects that significantly impact mental health. Interoception is the brain’s ability to detect internal bodily signals, including temperature which is important for understanding and regulating emotions. Thermal sensation is the ability to perceive temperature through the skin which sends signals to the brain that influence our emotional health. Deficits in both interoception and thermal sensation have been linked to emotional difficulties such as anxiety, depression and apathy. However, most research has focused on healthy young adults and there is little known about how thermal sensation impacts emotional processing in healthy elderly individuals and people with Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Both groups often experience thermoregulatory dysfunction, altered skin sensitivity and emotional difficulties, but how these factors are interconnected remains unclear.
In my project, I aim to address this gap by comparing thermal sensation, emotional processing, and interoception in healthy elderly individuals and those with PD. Participants will complete questionnaires, thermal detection tasks, interoception tests, and emotional body mapping tasks. My goal is to better understand how bodily awareness and temperature sensitivity relate to emotional symptoms in these groups. The findings from this research could help improve emotional wellbeing for the elderly and people with PD, and guide future interventions to enhance their quality of life.
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