Warm pleasant feelings in the brain

Rolls, Edmund T.; Grabenhorst, Fabian; Parris, Benjamin A.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2008.03.005

Cited by 207 publications

(174 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…74). In addition, the OFC was sensitive to visual sex (with effect sizes similar to those in SI), in agreement with the affective valuation often associated with this region (11)(12)(13). Previous models have associated the medial OFC with the monitoring and memory of the reward value of reinforcers (75), and the medial orbital gyrus specifically with the positive value of erotic as opposed to monetary reinforcers (76).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

“…Prevailing models of how the brain processes the sensory and affective properties of gentle touch have drawn predominantly on experiments that used inanimate objects with varying textures, rather than interpersonal touch (2,3), or from the known neural organization of unmyelinated, Ctactile (CT) fibers in hairy skin (4-7), which respond specifically to light touch (8) and project to and activate the insula, but project to and inhibit the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) (9,10). Differences in brain activation in the insula, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) have been found according to stimulus type (e.g., a wooden rod vs. a velvet cloth) (11) and subjective ratings of emotion (12,13). Thus, previous work has shown that SI primarily discriminates sensory properties (e.g., location, pressure, texture), whereas the insula, together with the ACC and the OFC, primarily discriminate affective/emotional properties (i.e., perceived pleasantness) (7,11,14,15).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Primary somatosensory cortex discriminates affective significance in social touch

Gazzola¹,

Spezio

Etzel³

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

290

224

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Another person's caress is one of the most powerful of all emotional social signals. How much the primary somatosensory cortices (SIs) participate in processing the pleasantness of such social touch remains unclear. Although ample empirical evidence supports the role of the insula in affective processing of touch, here we argue that SI might be more involved in affective processing than previously thought by showing that the response in SI to a sensual caress is modified by the perceived sex of the caresser. In a functional MRI study, we manipulated the perceived affective quality of a caress independently of the sensory properties at the skin: heterosexual males believed they were sensually caressed by either a man or woman, although the caress was in fact invariantly delivered by a female blind to condition type. Independent analyses showed that SI encoded, and was modulated by, the visual sex of the caress, and that this effect is unlikely to originate from the insula. This suggests that current models may underestimate the role played by SI in the affective processing of social touch.affective touch | sexual selection | gender | crossmodal perception | hot cognition

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Primary somatosensory cortex discriminates affective significance in social touch

Gazzola¹,

Spezio

Etzel³

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

290

224

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Stroking touch hyperhedonia and analgesia responses both correlated with increases in the pgACC. In addition to its role in pain modulation and placebo responses, this region is paramount for emotion appraisal and valuation processing (27), and is activated by pleasant tactile stimuli, such as warmth (37), massage (38), and soft gentle strokes to the skin (39).…”

Section: Common Emotion Appraisal Circuitry Mediated Behavioral and Boldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Placebo improves pleasure and pain through opposite modulation of sensory processing

Ellingsen

Wessberg

Eikemo

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Placebo analgesia is often conceptualized as a reward mechanism. However, by targeting only negative experiences, such as pain, placebo research may tell only half the story. We compared placebo improvement of painful touch (analgesia) with placebo improvement of pleasant touch (hyperhedonia) using functional MRI and a crossover design. Somatosensory processing was decreased during placebo analgesia and increased during placebo hyperhedonia. Both placebo responses were associated with similar patterns of activation increase in circuitry involved in emotion appraisal, including the pregenual anterior cingulate, medial orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, accumbens, and midbrain structures. Importantly, placebo-induced coupling between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and periaqueductal gray correlated with somatosensory decreases to painful touch and somatosensory increases to pleasant touch. These findings suggest that placebo analgesia and hyperhedonia are mediated by activation of shared emotion appraisal neurocircuitry, which down-or upregulates early sensory processing, depending on whether the expectation is reduced pain or increased pleasure.expectancy | neuroimaging | hedonic feelings M edical treatments aim to provide relief from pain and aversive states. Consequently, research on placebo effects has focused on relief of negative hedonic feelings, like pain and displeasure (1). In contrast, placebo improvement of positive hedonics has received little attention. However, pain and pleasure processes are tightly linked. Relief from pain can induce a pleasant experience underpinned by activation of reward neurocircuitry (2-4). Moreover, a painful stimulus can even be perceived as pleasant when it represents relief from a more severe outcome (5). In line with this pain-pleasure link, placebo analgesia can be conceptualized as a type of reward mechanism; pain relief is a better outcome than the alternative (6-8) and is typically framed as a gain (improvement of pain) (9).Like pain, pleasure is greatly affected by context and expectation (10). Manipulation of people's beliefs about the price of a wine (11), the amount of fruit in a sweet drink (12), the richness of a skin cream (13), and who is caressing them (14) alters the experienced pleasantness of these stimuli.Placebo-induced improvement of aversive experiences (e.g., pain, anxiety, unpleasant taste) is often underpinned by a decrease in central sensory processing. Placebo analgesia is characterized by decreases in the thalamus, posterior insula (pINS), and primary and secondary somatosensory areas (SI and SII) (15)(16)(17). Placebo reduction of affective responses to unpleasant visual stimuli is similarly underpinned by suppression of visual processing (8). It is not, however, known whether placeboenhanced pleasantness (i.e., hyperhedonia) also alters early stages of sensory processing, or if this change is encoded in higher-level valuation areas.Functional neuroimaging studies have revealed that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), amygdala, ventral...

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“…The CC is implicated in a diverse array of functions, such as emotion (George et al., 1995; Kross, Davidson, Weber, & Ochsner, 2009; Liotti et al., 2000; Rogers et al., 2004; Rolls, Grabenhorst, & Parris, 2008; Walter et al., 2008, 2009), movement (Beckmann, Johansen‐Berg, & Rushworth, 2009; Paus, 2001; Picard & Strick, 1996, 2001), self‐relevant assessment (Kelley et al., 2002; Vogt, Vogt, & Laureys, 2006), cognition (Luo et al., 2007; Pourtois et al., 2010; Sohn, Albert, Jung, Carter, & Anderson, 2007; Ursu, Clark, Aizenstein, Stenger, & Carter, 2009), memory (Maguire, 2001), visuospatial orientation (Vogt et al., 2006), navigation, imagination, and planning for the future (Vann, Aggleton, & Maguire, 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional and anatomical connectivity‐based parcellation of human cingulate cortex

et al. 2018

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IntroductionHuman cingulate cortex (CC) has been implicated in many functions, which is highly suggestive of the existence of functional subregions.MethodsIn this study, we used resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs‐fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to parcellate the human cingulate cortex (CC) based on resting‐state functional connectivity (rsFC) patterns and anatomical connectivity (AC) patterns, to analyze the rsFC patterns and the AC patterns of different subregions, and to recognize whether the parcellation results obtained by the two different methods were consistent.ResultsThe CC was divided into six functional subregions, including the anterior cingulate cortex, dorsal anterior midcingulate cortex, ventral anterior midcingulate cortex, posterior midcingulate cortex, dorsal posterior cingulate cortex, and ventral posterior cingulate cortex. The CC was also divided into ten anatomical subregions, termed Subregion 1 (S1) to Subregion 10 (S10). Each subregion showed specific connectivity patterns, although the functional subregions and the anatomical subregions were internally consistent.ConclusionsUsing different model MRI images, we established a parcellation scheme, which is internally consistent for the human CC, which may provide an in vivo guide for subregion‐level studies and improve our understanding of this brain area at subregional levels.

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Warm pleasant feelings in the brain

Cited by 207 publications

References 52 publications

Primary somatosensory cortex discriminates affective significance in social touch

Primary somatosensory cortex discriminates affective significance in social touch

Placebo improves pleasure and pain through opposite modulation of sensory processing

Functional and anatomical connectivity‐based parcellation of human cingulate cortex

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