Damage to the Right Insula Disrupts the Perception of Affective Touch

Kirsch, Louise P.; Besharati, Sahba; Papadaki, Christina; Crucianelli, Laura; Bertagnoli, Sara; Ward, Nick; Moro, Valentina; Jenkinson, Paul M.; Fotopoulou, Aikaterini

doi:10.1101/592014

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Cerebral lesions specifically involving the dorsal posterior insula disrupt touch pleasantness delivered at CT optimal velocities. 4 These findings imply that Aβ- and CT-LTMR pathways are distinct with CT afferents being placed within a wider system that is more interoceptive than exteroceptive. 1,3…”

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confidence: 92%

Affective Touch: The Enigmatic Spinal Pathway of the C-Tactile Afferent

McGlone

2020

J Exp Neurosci

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C-tactile afferents are hypothesized to form a distinct peripheral channel that encodes the affective nature of touch. Prevailing views indicate they project, as with other unmyelinated afferents, in lamina I-spinothalamic pathways that relay homeostatically relevant information from the body toward cortical regions involved in interoceptive processing. However, in a recent study, we found that spinothalamic ablation in humans, while profoundly impairing the canonical spinothalamic modalities of pain, temperature, and itch, had no effect on benchmark psychophysical affective touch metrics. These novel findings appear to indicate that perceptual judgments about the affective nature of touch pleasantness do not depend on the integrity of the lamina I-spinothalamic tract. In this commentary, we further discuss the implications of these unexpected findings. Intuitively, they suggest that signaling of emotionally relevant C-tactile mediated touch occurs in an alternative ascending pathway. However, we also argue that the deficits seen following interruption of a putative C-tactile lamina I-spinothalamic relay might be barely perceptible—a feature that would underline the importance of the C-tactile afferent in neurodevelopment.

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confidence: 92%

Affective Touch: The Enigmatic Spinal Pathway of the C-Tactile Afferent

McGlone

2020

J Exp Neurosci

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“…CTs optimal firing response to gentle skin stroking, when recorded during microneurography studies (Löken et al 2009), is between 1-10 cm/s, corresponding to selfreported pleasant perception of touch as measured psychophysically (Essick et al, 2010), leading to the hypothesis that CTs have evolved in all social mammals to encode the socio-affective and rewarding dimensions of touch (Morrison et al, 2011). Interestingly, a recent lesion study which has investigated deficits in the perceived affectivity of CT optimal touch has found that posterior and anterior right insula lesions reduce pleasantness sensitivity in perceiving CT-optimal touch (Kirsch et al, 2020). Cutaneous afferent C-fibers are a diverse population of unmyelinated, slowly conducting nerves that evolved primarily to provide a basic function of protection by detecting and transmitting information to the brain of negatively hedonic (i.e., nociceptive, pruriceptive) events from the skin of the body or viscera, or of positively hedonic (affiliative touch) events.…”

Section: The Role Of Affectionate Touch In Infancymentioning

confidence: 99%

The body comes first. Embodied reparation and the co-creation of infant bodily-self

Montirosso

McGlone

2020

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

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“…For instance, Gordon et al ( 48 ) showed that CT–targeted affective touch to the arm activated the insula and the mPFC/dorsal–anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). Lesions of the insula in turn, impair the perception of affective touch ( 49 ). Recently, the insula was shown to be also activated by A-beta afferents ( 50 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Calming Effects of Touch in Human, Animal, and Robotic Interaction—Scientific State-of-the-Art and Technical Advances

et al. 2020

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Small everyday gestures such as a tap on the shoulder can affect the way humans feel and act. Touch can have a calming effect and alter the way stress is handled, thereby promoting mental and physical health. Due to current technical advances and the growing role of intelligent robots in households and healthcare, recent research also addressed the potential of robotic touch for stress reduction. In addition, touch by non-human agents such as animals or inanimate objects may have a calming effect. This conceptual article will review a selection of the most relevant studies reporting the physiological, hormonal, neural, and subjective effects of touch on stress, arousal, and negative affect. Robotic systems capable of non-social touch will be assessed together with control strategies and sensor technologies. Parallels and differences of human-to-human touch and human-to-non-human touch will be discussed. We propose that, under appropriate conditions, touch can act as (social) signal for safety, even when the interaction partner is an animal or a machine. We will also outline potential directions for future research and clinical relevance. Thereby, this review can provide a foundation for further investigations into the beneficial contribution of touch by different agents to regulate negative affect and arousal in humans.

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Damage to the Right Insula Disrupts the Perception of Affective Touch

Cited by 14 publications

References 45 publications

Affective Touch: The Enigmatic Spinal Pathway of the C-Tactile Afferent

Affective Touch: The Enigmatic Spinal Pathway of the C-Tactile Afferent

The body comes first. Embodied reparation and the co-creation of infant bodily-self

Calming Effects of Touch in Human, Animal, and Robotic Interaction—Scientific State-of-the-Art and Technical Advances

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