Brain-to-brain coupling during handholding is associated with pain reduction
Open accessAbstract
The mechanisms underlying analgesia related to social touch are not clear. While recent research highlights the role of the empathy of the observer to pain relief in the target, the contribution of social interaction to analgesia is unknown. The current study examines brain-to-brain coupling during pain with interpersonal touch and tests the involvement of interbrain synchrony in pain alleviation. Romantic partners were assigned the roles of target (pain receiver) and observer (pain observer) under pain-no-pain and touch-no-touch conditions concurrent with EEG recording. Brain-to-brain coupling in alpha-mu band (8-12 Hz) was estimated by a three-step multilevel analysis procedure based on running window circular correlation coefficient and post hoc power of the findings was calculated using simulations. Our findings indicate that hand-holding during pain administration increases brain-to-brain coupling in a network that mainly involves the central regions of the pain target and the right hemisphere of the pain observer. Moreover, brain-to-brain coupling in this network was found to correlate with analgesia magnitude and observer's empathic accuracy. These findings indicate that brain-to-brain coupling may be involved in touch-related analgesia.
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Social touch between romantic partners during pain strengthens inter-partner brain-to-brain coupling in the alpha/mu-band.
“Interestingly, social touch between romantic partners during the experience of pain strengthens inter-partner brain-to-brain coupling in the alpha/mu-band”
From Oxytocin enhances the pain‐relieving effects of social support in romantic couples (2019) · cites this paper as Goldstein, Weissman-Fogel, Dumas, & Shamay-Tsoory, 2018
Brain-to-brain coupling enhances touch-related analgesia and empathic accuracy.
“and this brain-to-brain coupling enhances touchrelated analgesia and empathic accuracy (Goldstein, Weissman-Fogel, Dumas, & Shamay-Tsoory, 2018).”
From Oxytocin enhances the pain‐relieving effects of social support in romantic couples (2019) · cites this paper as Goldstein, Weissman-Fogel, Dumas, & Shamay-Tsoory, 2018
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- Authors
- Goldstein, P., Weissman-Fogel, I., Dumas, G., & Shamay-Tsoory, S. G.
- Affiliations
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Physical Therapy Department, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel;
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel;
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2018-02-26
- Volume
- 115
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- E2528-E2537
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC5856497
- OpenAlex
- W2793106680
- Cited by
- 311
- References
- 29
- Citations by year
- 2026: 32 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 47 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 48 · 2020: 38 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 17
- FWCI
- 42.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation (2015068)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Pain Mechanisms and Treatments
- Keywords
- inter-brain synchrony, social touch, hand-holding, empathic accuracy, romantic partners, EEG
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain, Brain Chemistry, Electroencephalography, Empathy, Family Characteristics, Female, Hand, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Pain, Pain Measurement, Young Adult
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