Discriminative and affective touch: sensing and feeling.
The multimodal properties of the human somatosensory system continue to be unravelled. There is mounting evidence that one of these submodalities-touch-has another dimension, providing not only its well-recognized discriminative input to the brain, but also an affective input. It has long been recognized that touch plays an important role in many forms of social communication and a number of theories have been proposed to explain observations and beliefs about the "power of touch." Here, we propose that a class of low-threshold mechanosensitive C fibers that innervate the hairy skin represent the neurobiological substrate for the affective and rewarding properties of touch.
School of Natural Science & Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, L3 3AF, UK; Institute of Psychology, Health & Society, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 3BX, UK. Electronic address: f.p.mcglone@ljmu.ac.uk.
Francis
F
McGlone
Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, University of Gothenburg, Box 432, 40530 Göteborg, Sweden.
Johan
J
Wessberg
Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Division of Neuroscience, Neurophysiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden.
Håkan
H
Olausson
D000344:Afferent Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D002490:Central Nervous System / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D036421:Nerve Fibers, Unmyelinated / Q000502:physiology; D009431:Neural Conduction / Q000502:physiology; D011601:Psychophysics; D012879:Skin Physiological Phenomena; D014110:Touch