logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2023
32m 49s

How We Touch

The Bertarelli Foundation
About this episode

How do we feel with our fingertips? What parts of the brain integrate the complexities of touch? And how are scientists creating prosthetics that give feeling back to amputees? 

In this episode of How We’re Wired, join evolutionary anthropologist Dr Anna Machin as she unpicks the neuroscience behind our sense of touch; from the complex web of nerve endings that cover our skin to meeting the first individuals to experience feeling with a prosthesis. 

With special thanks to David Ginty, Dennis Aabo Sørensen, Loretana Puglisi, and Silvestro Micera.    

How We’re Wired is a Fresh Air Production for The Bertarelli Foundation. Follow now so you never miss an episode.  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Up next
Nov 2023
When We Ask You A Question
What do you want to know about the brain? What mysteries of human behaviour do you want to understand? And what incredible awards has How We're Wired won in the 13th Annual Lovies? In this special episode, Dr Anna Machin shares some good news, and asks a quick favour... Send ques ... Show More
2m 15s
Jul 2023
Finale - How Are We Wired?
How do our brains get wired up in the womb? Why is it important that nerve cells find the correct partners to form connections? And how has our understanding of this vital process changed over the last 40 years? In this special episode, join evolutionary anthropologist Dr Anna Ma ... Show More
35m 41s
Jul 2023
Introducing... Ocean Matters
How We're Wired season 1's final episode will be with you next week, but in the meantime, why not check out our sister podcast Ocean Matters? Our ocean is the earth's defining feature. But the blue of our blue planet is so much more than just a colour. It is rich with life and pl ... Show More
4m 36s
Recommended Episodes
Aug 24
Christopher Kemp, "Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation" (Norton, 2022)
Inside our heads we carry around an infinite and endlessly unfolding map of the world. Navigation is one of the most ancient neural abilities we have―older than language. In Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation (Norton, 2022), Christopher Kemp embarks on a jour ... Show More
50m 51s
Sep 12
Unpacking the Brain’s Role in Inventing Your Perception
Human brains don’t just perceive reality—they invent it. In this episode of Science Quickly, cognitive neuroscientist Daniel Yon speaks with host Rachel Feltman about how perception is an active process of prediction in which the brain constructs theories about the world that can ... Show More
15m 37s
Jul 11
Why Do We Sing? Musicologists and Neuroscientists Seek an Answer
Last year Science Quickly looked across disciplines to piece apart the science of singing. To understand why humans sing, musicologists collaborated on an international study of folk music. To understand how we sing, neuroscientists differentiated how our brain processes speech a ... Show More
24m 49s
Sep 26
The Dead Composer Whose ‘Brain’ Still Makes Music
In a hauntingly innovative exhibit, brain cells grown from the late composer Alvin Lucier’s blood generate sound. Set in a museum in Perth, Australia, the installation blurs the line between art and neuroscience. Host Rachel Feltman and associate editor Allison Parshall explore t ... Show More
25m 25s
Apr 2025
From the Internet’s Beginnings to Our Understanding of Consciousness, This Editor Has Seen It All
Senior mind and brain editor Gary Stix has covered the breadth of science and technology over the past 35 years at Scientific American. He joins host Rachel Feltman to take us through the rise of the Internet and the acceleration of advancement in neuroscience that he’s covered t ... Show More
20m 15s
Sep 17
The Role Our Microbiome Plays In Our ‘Gut Feelings’
Scientists are tuning in to a surprising conversation happening inside us—between our gut and our brain. Host Rachel Feltman chats with Maya Kaelberer, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona’s department of physiology, to explore how intestinal cells and microbiomes ... Show More
13m 26s
Oct 7
929: Dragon Hatchling: The Missing Link Between Transformers and the Brain, with Adrian Kosowski
Breaking news: Jon Krohn welcomes Adrian Kosowski to the show to talk about the groundbreaking research happening at Pathway. Adrian and his team demonstrate how they have brought attention in AI closer to the way the brain functions, creating, in essence, a “massively parallel s ... Show More
1h 14m
Mar 2025
Talk Tracks Ep 5: Consciousness Beyond The Body: When a Coma Projects a Ghost
In this riveting episode of The Talk Tracks, we explore two astonishing stories that challenge our understanding of consciousness and the limits of the human mind. First, we meet Elodie, who recounts her near-death experience at 18—a moment that profoundly altered her perception ... Show More
39m 26s
Sep 19
The Spark of Life
In the 1920s, a Russian biologist studying onion roots made a surprising discovery: underground, down in the darkness, it seemed like the cells inside the onion roots were making their own … light. The “onion root experiment” went on to become something of a cult classic in scien ... Show More
36m 1s
Sep 24
10. The woman who discovered the opiate receptor in the brain + someone is LIVING in the lab?
🧠 welcome to the LAST episode of OVERLOOKED, the series where we shine a light on the women in STEM who history often left in the shadows. For our last episode, we’re talking all about Candace Pert, the groundbreaking neuroscientist who discovered the opioid receptor. Her work n ... Show More
44m 47s