ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2021
In Touch with the Heartbeat: Newborns' Cardiac Sensitivity to Affective and Non-Affective Touch.
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 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
- A Protocol to Acquire Infant Heart Rate Variability in the Rohingya Camps and Surrounding Communities in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- From touch to triage: translating the NAME model into clinical practice for enhanced neonatal assessment.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Article
- Early functional organization of the anterior and posterior hippocampus in the fetal brain.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Touching Emotions: How Touch Shapes Facial Emotional Processing Among Adolescents and Young Adults.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Comparing Full and Pre-Term Neonates' Heart Rate Variability in Rest Condition and during Spontaneous Interactions with Their Parents at Home.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Interpersonal Affective Touch in a Virtual World: Feeling the Social Presence of Others to Overcome Loneliness.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Review
- The Stress of Being Left Out: Physiological and Behavioral Responses to Ostracism in Preverbal Infants.Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant StudiesArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The sense of touch is the first manner of contact with the external world, providing a foundation for the development of sensorimotor skills and socio-affective behaviors. In particular, affective touch is at the core of early interpersonal interactions and the developing bodily self, promoting the balance between internal physiological state and responsiveness to external environment. The aim of the present study is to investigate whether newborns are able to discriminate between affective touch and non-affective somatosensory stimulations and whether affective touch promotes a positive physiological state. We recorded full-term newborns' (N = 30) heart rate variability (HRV)-which reflects oscillations of heart rate associated with autonomic cardio-respiratory regulation-while newborns were presented with two minutes of affective (stroking) and non-affective (tapping) touch alternated with two minutes of resting in a within-subject design. The results revealed that non-affective touch elicits a decrease in HRV, whereas affective touch does not result in a change of HRV possibly indicating maintenance of calm physiological state. Thus, newborns showed cardiac sensitivity to different types of touch, suggesting that early somatosensory stimulation represents scaffolding for development of autonomic self-regulation with important implications on infant's ability to adaptively respond to the surrounding social and physical environment.
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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.