ReviewFrontiers in neuroscience2020
The Role of Affectionate Caregiver Touch in Early Neurodevelopment and Parent-Infant Interactional Synchrony.
Review in Frontiers in neuroscience, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 42 papers, 3 of them syntheses 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
42 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 90 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of the effect of sandplay therapy on social communication deficits in children with autism spectrum disorder.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2024Pooled it
- Massage and touch-based therapy : Clinical evidence, neurobiology and applications in older patients with psychiatric symptoms.Zeitschrift fur Gerontologie und Geriatrie · 2021Pooled it
- Parent-Infant Skin-to-Skin Contact and Stress Regulation: A Systematic Review of the Literature.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Pooled it
- Parental microbiome programming of early-life neurodevelopment: multi-niche contributions through the microbiome-gut-brain axis.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- Early Reward Learning and the Origins of Obesity: Food, Non-Food Reward, and Developing Self-Regulation.Current obesity reports · 2026Review
- Embodied Neuropsychodynamics of the Relational Self Across Space and Time: An Integrative Narrative Review.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Enhancing neonatal vascular access: proposing a patient-centered framework based on 7-Rights.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Meaning-Events: The Sensorimotor Foundation for Lifespan Development of Meaning.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Everyday maternal sensitivity to distress is dynamic and systematically varies across contexts.Child development · 2026Article
- The Role and Ethics of Touch and Non-touch in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2026Review
- Updated Freudian drive theory: childhood trauma, epigenetics, serotonin and beta endorphin.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Development of interoception: the critical role of maternal affective touch in early attachment.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Integrating autonomic and affective pathways in borderline personality disorder: the triangle therapy hypothesis.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Review
- Pilot Implementation of the NeuroSense PremmieEd Parenting Educational Programme for Parents with Infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A Sequential Cohort Design.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Immediate Skin-to-Skin Contact at Very Preterm Birth and Neurodevelopment the First Two Years: Secondary Outcomes from a Randomised Clinical Trial.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- It's Safe to Look: Maternal Touch Affects Infants' Fear Bias.Developmental science · 2025Article
- Does affective touch buffer emotional distress? Insights from subjective and physiological indices.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2025Article
- Underexplored Connections Between Diabetes, Hypomanic States and Insecure Attachment.Psychology research and behavior management · 2025Review
- Affective Touch in Preterm Infant Development: Neurobiological Mechanisms and Implications for Child-Caregiver Attachment and Neonatal Care.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Though rarely included in studies of parent-infant interactions, affectionate touch plays a unique and vital role in infant development. Previous studies in human and rodent models have established that early and consistent affectionate touch from a caregiver confers wide-ranging and holistic benefits for infant psychosocial and neurophysiological development. We begin with an introduction to the neurophysiological pathways for the positive effects of touch. Then, we provide a brief review of how affectionate touch tunes the development of infant somatosensory, autonomic (stress regulation), and immune systems. Affective touch also plays a foundational role in the establishment of social affiliative bonds and early psychosocial behavior. These touch-related bonding effects are known to be mediated primarily by the oxytocin system, but touch also activates mesocorticolimbic dopamine and endogenous opioid systems which aid the development of social cognitive processes such as social learning and reward processing. We conclude by proposing a unique role for affectionate touch as an essential pathway to establishing and maintaining parent-infant interactional synchrony at behavioral and neural levels. The limitations of the current understanding of affectionate touch in infant development point to fruitful avenues for future research.
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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.