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Konstantina Kilteni, PhD
(Assistant Professor)
Research
Why can't you tickle yourself? Previous behavioural and neuroimaging
evidence suggests that when we move one hand to touch the other, the
resulting tactile sensation is perceived as less intense compared to
identical touches of external origin. This sensory attenuation (SA)
phenomenon is hypothesized to arise because our brains use internal
information about the motor command (efference copy) to predict the tactile
consequences of the movement and attenuate the tactile feedback based on
these predictions. However, little is known about how the brain produces SA.
Konstantina's research combines computational motor control theory, force perception
behavioural experiments, and state-of-the-art neuroimaging methods to address how the
human brain distinguishes between self-generated and externally-generated touch.
Konstantina studied Electrical and Computer Engineering in the National Technical University of Athens and she did her PhD studies in Health and
Clinical Psychology using Virtual Reality in the Event Lab, at the University of Barcelona.
Konstantina was a postdoc in the group from Februari 2015 to December 2019, funded in 2017-2018 by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship.
In Januari 2020 she was promoted to assistant professor funded by a career development grant from the Karolinska Instituet.
In May 2020 she will set up her own independent group at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, as principal investigator.
Click here to read more about her latest research
Sample Publications
Kilteni, K., Engeler, P., Ehrsson, H.H. Efference copy is necessary for the attenuation of self-touch. iScience (2020) 100843. PDF
Kilteni, K., Ehrsson, H. H. Functional connectivity between the cerebellum and somatosensory areas implements the attenuation of self-generated touch. Journal of Neuroscience (2019) Dec 6. pii: 1732-19. [Epub ahead of print] PDF
Kilteni, K., Houborg, C., Ehrsson, H. H. Rapid learning and unlearning of predicted sensory delays in self-generated touch. eLife (2019) 8:e42888. PDF
Kilteni, K., Andersson, B. J., Houborg, C., Ehrsson, H.H. Motor imagery involves predicting the sensory consequences of the imagined movement. Nature Communications (2018) 9(1):1617. PDF
Kilteni, K., Ehrsson HH. Body ownership determines the attenuation of self-generated tactile sensations. PNAS (2017) 114(31):8426-8431. PDF
Kilteni, K., Ehrsson, HH. Sensorimotor predictions and tool use: Hand-held tools attenuate self-touch. Cognition (2017) 165:1-9. PDF
Kilteni, K., Maselli, A., Kording, K. P., & Slater, M. Over my fake body: body ownership illusions for studying the multisensory basis of own-body perception. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 9 (2015). PDF
To read more about Konstantina's Marie Skłodowska-Curie EU-project, click here.
Contact
Konstantina Kilteni, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Neuroscience
Karolinska Institutet, Biomedicum
Solnavägen 9, 171 65 Solna, Sweden
email: konstantina.kilteni @ ki.se
office phone: (+46) 8 524 87 217
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