About

Dr Laura Crucianelli

I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Psychology at Queen Mary University of London, where I coordinate the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience module. Until August 2023, I was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the Brain, Body and Self Lab (Ehrsson lab), Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet (Stockholm, Sweden). I am also an affiliated member of the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience group at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London (London, United Kingdom).

My research focuses on the perception of (affective) touch and temperature, multisensory integration, interoception and the sense of body ownership.

I completed my PhD at the Department of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire and University College London (United Kingdom). My PhD and first postdoc at KatLab (UCL) investigated affective touch, interoception and sense of body ownership in healthy and clinical populations (e.g. anorexia nervosa, functional motor disorders). I have also investigated mother-infant tactile interactions and the effect of intranasal oxytocin in multisensory integration and interoceptive perception in healthy women and women with Anorexia Nervosa.

My background is in Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsycholgy. Before starting my PhD, I worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, conducting research about awareness of illness following right-hemisphere stroke.