Primary somatosensory cortex discriminates affective significance in social touch.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
; 109(25): E1657-66, 2012 Jun 19.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-22665808
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.
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Córtex Somatossensorial
/
Tato
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Limite:
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2012
Tipo de documento:
Article