Keynote speaker: Olaf Blanke: Experience engineering, neuroscience research and medical applications

摘要

Modern robotic and haptic technology in the form of surgical robotics, prosthetics and rehabilitation robotics has been widely applied for the improvement of surgical procedures, the training of new abilities, and the restoration of lost sensorimotor functions. However, despite these important achievements, I believe that robotic devices are not sufficiently employed to study or enhance consciousness and cognition: the most important and astonishing features of the human mind (cognetics) (Rognini & Blanke, 2016). Cognetics and cognetic devices are haptic interfaces able to render and combine artificial multisensory stimuli with movement and related motor signals, based on recent findings that perception and bodily awareness, including complex sensations, is based on multisensory and sensorimotor integration. In this talk, I will, first, introduce our cognetics-based experimental approach and describe our latest research findings using new robotic-haptic interfaces as applied to the neuroscience of consciousness and bodily awareness. Second, I will describe our ongoing translational studies in robotic psychiatry where we investigate the diagnostic potential of our robotic devices in patients with schizophrenia that suffer from alterations of consciousness such as hallucinations and delusions.