SynthesisHuman brain mapping2016
ALE meta-analysis reveals dissociable networks for affective and discriminative aspects of touch.
Synthesis in Human brain mapping, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 71 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
71 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 176 citations in OpenAlex.
- The neural correlates of texture perception: A systematic review and activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies.Brain and behavior · 2023Pooled it
- Grey matter alterations in migraine: A systematic review and meta-analysis.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2017Pooled it
- Trial
- A neurobiological evaluation of soft touch training for patients with skin-picking disorder.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2022Trial
- Effects of MDMA on attention to positive social cues and pleasantness of affective touch.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2019Trial
- Can you feel it? Altered affective touch perception in a transdiagnostic sample of female adolescents with nonsuicidal self-injury.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Novel avatar-based video-guided acupuncture imagery treatment for chronic low back pain: a randomised controlled trial in the USA.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Article
- CT-Optimal Stimulation Modulates Somatosensory Processing.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Somatosensory false feedback biases emotional ratings through interoceptive embodiment.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Does affective touch buffer emotional distress? Insights from subjective and physiological indices.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Is cultural context the crucial touch? Neurophysiological and self-reported responses to affective touch in women in South Africa and the United Kingdom.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Touching soft materials slows affective visual processing.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Neurophysiological evidence of motor contribution to vicarious affective touch.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Review
- Evolutionarily conserved neural responses to affective touch in monkeys transcend consciousness and change with age.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Brain mechanisms for processing caress-like touch in skin-picking disorder.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2024Article
- Atypical cerebellar activity and connectivity during affective touch in adults with skin-picking disorder.Brain imaging and behavior · 2024Article
- The skin-brain connection and pleasant touch as supportive care for psychocutaneous disorders.Skin health and disease · 2024Review
- To touch or to be touched? comparing appraisal of vicarious execution and reception of interpersonal touch.PloS one · 2024Article
- MDMA modulates human sensorimotor cortical pathways during gentle touch.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
11 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Emotionally-laden tactile stimulation-such as a caress on the skin or the feel of velvet-may represent a functionally distinct domain of touch, underpinned by specific cortical pathways. In order to determine whether, and to what extent, cortical functional neuroanatomy supports a distinction between affective and discriminative touch, an activation likelihood estimate (ALE) meta-analysis was performed. This meta-analysis statistically mapped reported functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activations from 17 published affective touch studies in which tactile stimulation was associated with positive subjective evaluation (n = 291, 34 experimental contrasts). A separate ALE meta-analysis mapped regions most likely to be activated by tactile stimulation during detection and discrimination tasks (n = 1,075, 91 experimental contrasts). These meta-analyses revealed dissociable regions for affective and discriminative touch, with posterior insula (PI) more likely to be activated for affective touch, and primary somatosensory cortices (SI) more likely to be activated for discriminative touch. Secondary somatosensory cortex had a high likelihood of engagement by both affective and discriminative touch. Further, meta-analytic connectivity (MCAM) analyses investigated network-level co-activation likelihoods independent of task or stimulus, across a range of domains and paradigms. Affective-related PI and discriminative-related SI regions co-activated with different networks, implicated in dissociable functions, but sharing somatosensory co-activations. Taken together, these meta-analytic findings suggest that affective and discriminative touch are dissociable both on the regional and network levels. However, their degree of shared activation likelihood in somatosensory cortices indicates that this dissociation reflects functional biases within tactile processing networks, rather than functionally and anatomically distinct pathways.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.