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Pleasant human touch is represented in pregenual anterior cingulate cortex
Abstract
Touch massage (TM) is a form of pleasant touch stimulation used as treatment in clinical settings and found to improve well-being and decrease anxiety, stress, and pain. Emotional responses reported during and after TM have been studied, but the underlying mechanisms are still largely unexplored. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) to test the hypothesis that the combination of human touch (i.e. skin-to-skin contact) with movement is eliciting a specific response in brain areas coding for pleasant sensations. The design included four different touch conditions; human touch with or without movement and rubber glove with or without movement. Force (2.5 N) and velocity (1.5 cm/s) were held constant across conditions. The pleasantness of the four different touch stimulations was rated on a visual analog scale (VAS-scale) and human touch was rated as most pleasant, particularly in combination with movement. The fMRI results revealed that TM stimulation most strongly activated the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC). These results are consistent with findings showing pgACC activation during various rewarding pleasant stimulations. This area is also known to be activated by both opioid analgesia and placebo. Together with these prior results, our finding furthers the understanding of the basis for positive TM treatment effects.
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“the specific OXT-induced increase in pleasantness may be mediated by the pACC.”
From An oxytocin-induced facilitation of neural and emotional responses to social touch correlates inversely with autism traits (2014) · cites this paper as Lindgren et al, 2012
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Metadata
- Authors
- Lindgren, L., Westling, G., Brulin, C., Lehtipalo, S., Andersson, M., & Nyberg, L.
- Affiliations
- University Hospital of Umeå (SE)
- Umeå University (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Lindgren, Lenita
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2012-02
- Volume
- 59
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 3427-3432
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2069561524
- Cited by
- 140
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 3.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research
- Umeå University, Sweden
- Swedish Research Council
- The Strategic Research Program in Neuroscience at Umeå University and Karoliska Institutet
- Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Pain Management and Placebo Effect
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology (medical) › Pain Mechanisms and Treatments
- Keywords
- human touch, pregenual anterior cingulate cortex, skin-to-skin contact, reward processing, placebo analgesia, opioid analgesia, analgesia, well-being
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Brain Mapping, Female, Gyrus Cinguli, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Touch Perception, Young Adult, Pleasure
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