ArticleNeurobiology of pain (Cambridge, Mass.)
The evaluation and brain representation of pleasant touch in chronic and subacute back pain.
Article in Neurobiology of pain (Cambridge, Mass.). The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- The hijacked insula: A stratified model of affective touch modulation in chronic pain.Journal of neuropsychology · 2026Review
- Modulation of pain by affective touch: effects of childhood trauma, depression, chronic pain, and spinal segment.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Distinct effects of fibromyalgia pain, depression and anxiety on perception of affective touch and pain.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Autistic adults prefer social touch less but engage just as much: The impact of social context, relationship type, sensory responsivity, and psychological factors.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2026Article
- MASSAG model: Towards an integrative neuroscience framework linking emotional trauma, pain, and mechanisms of force-based manipulations.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Neural and psychosocial signatures of the comorbidity between pain and affective symptoms.Pain reports · 2026Article
- Chronic pain is linked to a resting-state neural archetype that optimizes learning from punishments.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Review
- A Case-Series of Dry Needling as an Immediate Sensory Integration Intervention.The Journal of manual & manipulative therapy · 2022Article
- Pleasant touch perception in borderline personality disorder and its relationship with disturbed body representation.Borderline personality disorder and emotion dysregulation · 2022Article
- The analgesic power of pleasant touch in individuals with chronic pain: Recent findings and new insights.Frontiers in integrative neuroscience · 2022Review
- Article
- Article
- Altered Interoceptive Perception and the Effects of Interoceptive Analgesia in Musculoskeletal, Primary, and Neuropathic Chronic Pain Conditions.Journal of personalized medicine · 2020Article
- The association of spouse interactions and emotional learning in interference related to chronic back pain.Neurobiology of pain (Cambridge, Mass.)Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
If touch is perceived as pleasant, it can counteract the experience of pain. However, its pain-inhibitory function might be disturbed in chronic pain and this could contribute to pain-related interference. We investigated the perception of pleasant touch and its brain correlates in chronic back pain patients (CBP) compared to subacute back pain patients (SABP) and healthy controls (HC) using soft brush strokes. CBP showed less positive evaluations of touch. We found the highest activation in somatosensory and insular cortices in CBP, ventral striatum (VS) in SABP, and the orbitofrontal cortex in HC. Brain responses were significantly positively correlated with pleasantness ratings in HC and SABP, but not CBP. Further, the insula responses in CBP were positively correlated with pain-related interference and the VS activation in SABP correlated negatively with affective distress. Brain and behavioral changes in the processing of touch and its pleasantness may be a marker of pain chronicity and raise questions about the therapeutic value of pleasant touch in pain prevention and treatment.
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