ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2019
Distinction of self-produced touch and social touch at cortical and spinal cord levels.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
52 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The neural network of sensory attenuation: A neuroimaging meta-analysis.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2025Pooled it
- Theta burst stimulation of extrastriate body area for body perception in anorexia nervosa: a randomized controlled trial.Translational psychiatry · 2026Trial
- Ketamine reduces the neural distinction between self- and other-produced affective touch: a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Trial
- Trial
- A neurobiological evaluation of soft touch training for patients with skin-picking disorder.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2022Trial
- Elucidation of the relationship between sensory processing and white matter using diffusion tensor imaging tractography in young adults.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Stretchable h-BN/TPU Fibers for Passive-Active Dual-Mode Thermal Management and Wearable Haptic Interfaces.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Oxytocin Modulation of Spinal Circuits Drives Therapeutic Benefits of Massage.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Altered processing of self-produced sensations in psychosis at cortical and spinal levels.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Article
- Characteristics of vicarious touch reports in a general population.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Differential brain activation and network connectivity in social interactions presence and absence of physical contact.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Does affective touch buffer emotional distress? Insights from subjective and physiological indices.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Prior knowledge changes initial sensory processing in the human spinal cord.Science advances · 2025Article
- Linking heartbeats with the cortical network dynamics involved in self-social touch distinction.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Rapid visual engagement in neural processing of detailed touch interactions.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Dissociative Symptoms and Interoceptive Integration.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- Correction.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Article
- Self /other recognition and distinction in adolescents with anorexia nervosa: A pilot study using a double mirror paradigm.PloS one · 2025Article
- The role of sensory attenuation in symptomatic and healthy individuals: a scoping review.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Review
- Research Progress on Neural Processing of Hand and Forearm Tactile Sensation: A Review Based on fMRI Research.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Differentiation between self-produced tactile stimuli and touch by others is necessary for social interactions and for a coherent concept of "self." The mechanisms underlying this distinction are unknown. Here, we investigated the distinction between self- and other-produced light touch in healthy volunteers using three different approaches: fMRI, behavioral testing, and somatosensory-evoked potentials (SEPs) at spinal and cortical levels. Using fMRI, we found self-other differentiation in somatosensory and sociocognitive areas. Other-touch was related to activation in several areas, including somatosensory cortex, insula, superior temporal gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, striatum, amygdala, cerebellum, and prefrontal cortex. During self-touch, we instead found deactivation in insula, anterior cingulate cortex, superior temporal gyrus, amygdala, parahippocampal gyrus, and prefrontal areas. Deactivation extended into brain areas encoding low-level sensory representations, including thalamus and brainstem. These findings were replicated in a second cohort. During self-touch, the sensorimotor cortex was functionally connected to the insula, and the threshold for detection of an additional tactile stimulus was elevated. Differential encoding of self- vs. other-touch during fMRI correlated with the individual self-concept strength. In SEP, cortical amplitudes were reduced during self-touch, while latencies at cortical and spinal levels were faster for other-touch. We thus demonstrated a robust self-other distinction in brain areas related to somatosensory, social cognitive, and interoceptive processing. Signs of this distinction were evident at the spinal cord. Our results provide a framework for future studies in autism, schizophrenia, and emotionally unstable personality disorder, conditions where symptoms include social touch avoidance and poor self-vs.-other discrimination.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.