The overall scientific goal of my research program to understand how nervous systems give rise to flexible, intelligent behavior. The lens through which I address this question is the study of sensory processing: how are robust and flexible neuronal representations of the environment constructed to support behavior? The advantage of sensory neuroscience is that the experimenter has complete control of (or access to) the input and can then track how neural signals relating to this input are transformed as they propagate along the neuraxis. The sensory system of interest is the somatosensory system (of primates), critical to motor behavior and particularly manual behavior.