ArticleDevelopmental cognitive neuroscience2019
Hand or spoon? Exploring the neural basis of affective touch in 5-month-old infants.
Article in Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 2019. 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 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 80 citations in OpenAlex.
- The role of affective touch in mental illness: a systematic review of CT fiber dysregulation in psychological disorders and the therapeutic potential of CT fiber stimulation.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Maternal Interaction Relates to Neural Processing of Self-Related Multisensory Information in 5-Month-Olds.Developmental science · 2025Article
- Forming Connections: Functional Brain Connectivity is Associated With Executive Functioning Abilities in Early Childhood.Developmental science · 2025Article
- Neural responses to social touch with different emotional valences: an fNIRS study.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Caregiver-child neural synchrony: Magic, mirage, or developmental mechanism?Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Review
- Love on the developing brain: Maternal sensitivity and infants' neural responses to emotion in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.Developmental science · 2024Article
- Infant neural sensitivity to affective touch is associated with maternal postpartum depression.Infant behavior & development · 2024Article
- Infant neural sensitivity to affective touch is associated with maternal postpartum depression.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Frontal asymmetry assessed in infancy using functional near-infrared spectroscopy is associated with emotional and behavioral problems in early childhood.Child development · 2023Article
- Therapeutic touch and therapeutic alliance in pediatric care and neonatology: An active inference framework.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2023Article
- Oxytocin but not naturally occurring variation in caregiver touch associates with infant social orienting.Developmental psychobiology · 2022Article
- Investigation of functional near-infrared spectroscopy signal quality and development of the hemodynamic phase correlation signal.Neurophotonics · 2022Article
- Examining the Role of Socioeconomic Status and Maternal Sensitivity in Predicting Functional Brain Network Connectivity in 5-Month-Old Infants.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2022Article
- Maternal sensitivity and infant neural response to touch: an fNIRS study.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Article
- Physical contact in parent-infant relationship and its effect on fostering a feeling of safety.iScience · 2021Review
- Regional Haemodynamic and Metabolic Coupling in Infants.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Article
- Children's vicarious ratings of social touch are tuned to the velocity but not the location of a caress.PloS one · 2021Article
- The Role of Affectionate Caregiver Touch in Early Neurodevelopment and Parent-Infant Interactional Synchrony.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2020Review
- Social touch alters newborn monkey behavior.Infant behavior & development · 2019Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issuedErratum.2020
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
In adults, affective touch leads to widespread activation of cortical areas including posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus (pSTS) and Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG). Using functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS), we asked whether similar areas are activated in 5-month-old infants, by comparing affective to non-affective touch. We contrasted a human touch stroke to strokes performed with a cold metallic spoon. The hypothesis that adult-like activation of cortical areas would be seen only in response to the human touch stroke was not confirmed. Similar patterns of activation were seen in both conditions. We conclude that either the posterior STS and IFG have not yet developed selective responses to affective touch, or that additional social cues are needed to be able to identify this type of touch.
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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.