Konstantina Kilteni

It is very interesting that we all observed global (non-specific) suppression across mice, monkeys, and humans in touch, audition, and the vestibular sense, and we also observed (stronger) attenuation specific to the predicted self-generated sensations.

Suppressing Sensation during Action across Species and Sensory Modalities: Predictive and Nonpredictive Mechanisms of Sensory Modulation Perception and action are deeply intertwined processes that require the nervous system to distinguish between self-generated (reafferent) and externally generated (exafferent) sensory inputs. To maint...

This November we held a symposium at SfN on predictive sensory processing across species and modalities. We wrote a review about predictive and non-predictive mechanisms: www.jneurosci.org/content/45/4...

Free PDF here: openarchive.ki.se/articles/jou...

I think this could be the case for the moving limb - but my point is that the suppression is *global* and nonspecific to sensory feedback: both self- and externally generated stimuli (vibration) are suppressed (before contact). This is why I am asking for the role of prediction/fwd models here.

We interpreted this as indicating that, in the absence of vision, the estimated state (i.e., position) of the effector (right hand) and the target (left hand) is noisier, resulting in a less precise prediction of the time of contact between the hands and smaller temporal modulation.

When we manipulated vision, we observed that the linear decrease between touch and time with vision (Bays & Wolpert) was reduced when vision was blocked: flatter slopes and smaller intercepts. We also found that greater endpoint variability was associated with flatter slopes and lower intercepts.

Thank you! Yes, we cite Colino (2017). Actually when preparing our pre-registration for our vision/no-vision manipulation, we found studies reporting effects in both directions: osf.io/z2wju/overview

Orbitofrontal cortex drives predictive filtering of sensory responses - Nature Neuroscience Top-down projections from the orbitofrontal cortex carry predictive signals that grow with sound experience and suppress the auditory cortex via inhibitory circuits, revealing a predictive mechanism f...

Orbitofrontal cortex drives predictive filtering of sensory responses

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Vision Fine‐Tunes Predictions of Bimanual Self‐Touch When we move to touch ourselves, our somatosensory perception is gradually attenuated due to the predictions of the internal forward models about the somatosensory consequences of our movements. Here...

You might also be interested in our recent study (on self-touch!) with 2 prereg. experiments and manipulation of vision, where we find a modulation similar to the one reported by Bays&Wolpert with gradually increasing (not decreasing) attenuation during mvm: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This is what I do not understand: how is your proposal (suppression is due to prediction) supported within your paradigm?

You discuss the integration of tactile feedback in your paper, but the external vibration is not feedback, right? You state that you use it as a proxy, but how can a vibration serve as a proxy for sensory feedback during reaching? Shouldn't the brain use the sensory feedback for state estimation?

You have a vibration that is not predicted by the forward model (as you say) but is nevertheless suppressed, and at the same time you refer to prediction and a forward model to explain that suppression. Isn't that contradictory?

Any thoughts about these two questions?
@fatatiti.bsky.social
@dominikstrb.bsky.social
@c-rothkopf.bsky.social

Perception of the Consequences of Self-Action Is Temporally Tuned and Event Driven It has been proposed that in order to increase the salience of sensations with an external cause, sensations that are predictable based on one’s own actions are attenuated [1, 2]. This may explain why...

www.cell.com/current-biol...

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

(2) Also any thoughts on why the curve in (b) looks different when one reaches toward their own body? Bays&Wolpert(Cur Biol, 2005) showed that attenuation actually increases as the movement unfolds. This is what we find in Cemeljic(2025,2026). Do you think it is reaching towards a screen vs body?

But (1) why would external vibrations be "predicted" because of the reaching movement of the limb? I always struggle with this assumption in tactile suppression. Do you assume that the external vibrations during movement are being "mistaken" for sensory feedback of movement?

Hi Fabian, interesting work, thank you! I understand that the pattern you describe applies to externally generated stimuli during a reaching movement, rather than to self-generated stimuli that result from the movement itself.

New paper out from @noacemeljic.bsky.social at @ejneuroscience.bsky.social ! He studied whether the availability of visual input changes the temporal modulation of tactile perception during movement! 👇👇👇 (spoiler: and it does!)

Matching sounds to shapes: Evidence of the bouba-kiki effect in naïve baby chicks Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords “kiki” and “bouba” with spiky and round shapes, respectively, a phenomenon named the bouba-kiki effect. To explore the origin of t...

“Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords kiki & bouba with spiky & round shapes, respectively...We tested the bouba-kiki effect in baby chickens. Similar to humans, they spontaneously chose a spiky shape when hearing a kiki sound & a round shape when hearing a bouba.”😲🧪

New paper from the lab: we look at changes in cerebellar grey matter with aging and how it can account for changes in cerebellar function.
1. Cerebellar volumes from all regions decrease similarly
2. Topological organization stayed similar
3. No structure-function relationship was found

Functional gradients facilitate tactile sensing in elephant whiskers Keratin composites enable animals to hike with hooves, fly with feathers, and sense with skin. Mammalian whiskers are elongated keratin rods attached to tactile skin structures that extend the animal’...

So great! Mechanical engineers study the physics of elephant whiskers. Unlike mice, elephants don’t whisk. The physics of their whiskers suggests they amplify touch.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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A prefrontal cortex map based on single-neuron activity - Nature Neuroscience The authors mapped spontaneous and choice activity across mouse prefrontal cortex. The activity maps aligned with intrinsic connectivity rather than anatomical subregions, suggesting that connectivity...

Main postdoc study out! We can redefine prefrontal cortex regions with single-unit activity! Grateful to @carlenlab.bsky.social and @weltgeischt.bsky.social who made this crazy project real. Thanks to all co-authors, collaborators, and reviewers.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Separating the control of moving and holding in human post-stroke arm paresis Patients with stroke often show impairment in both moving and holding the arm, deficits that are dissociable experimentally, suggesting that moving and holding are controlled by separate neural mechan...

Our latest work is now a version-of-record article (rather than a reviewed preprint) at @elife.bsky.social :

elifesciences.org/articles/90780

with co-authors Kahori Kita, Scott Albert, Bob Scheidt, @rezashadmehr.bsky.social, and John Krakauer.

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Great news! We are looking for an NHP neuroscientist as the assistant professor level. We have no preconceived ideas -- looking for the most exciting research going. If you have any questions, please reach out. universityaffairs.ca/search-jobs/...

Conscious awareness, sensory integration, and evidence accumulation in bodily self-perception | PNAS Conscious awareness refers to the subjective experience of perceiving, thinking, and feeling and the ability to report these experiences. These per...

Happy to share our new and groundbreaking study on the relationship between conscious awareness and the sense of bodily self! With @brainself.bsky.social at @ki.se and out today in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Hypothesis Testing Governs an Efficiency-Flexibility Trade-off in Strategic Motor Learning It remains unknown how people discover an effective movement strategy when the environment changes (e.g., when adapting to a new computer trackpad). We propose that strategic adaptation operates throu...

New preprint! tinyurl.com/y6z57dsm

How do people discover an effective strategy when the environment shifts—say, when adapting to an unfamiliar trackpad?

Our take: strategic motor adaptation isn’t a smooth process of error reduction but rather a process of hypothesis testing.

🧵

On a roll with papers this week. PNAS paper with @michealdebarra.bsky.social giving some evidence to the idea that people turn to the supernatural because of uncertainty about causal processes. BONUS of curing whooping cough with donkeys and warts with snails 🐌

How I contributed to rejecting one of my favorite papers of all time I believe we should talk about the mistakes we make.

How I contributed to rejecting one of my favorite papers of all times, Yes, I teach it to students daily, and refer to it in lots of papers. Sorry. open.substack.com/pub/kording/...