ArticlePsychopharmacology2022
Acute tryptophan depletion alters affective touch perception.
Article in Psychopharmacology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Robust coupling between the C-tactile afferent and the hair follicle in humans.The Journal of physiology · 2025Article
- Review: Dopamine, Serotonin, and the Translational Neuroscience of Aggression in Autism Spectrum Disorder.JAACAP open · 2025Review
- The 'PSILAUT' protocol: an experimental medicine study of autistic differences in the function of brain serotonin targets of psilocybin.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Multiple modulatory roles of serotonin in chronic pain and injury-related anxiety.Frontiers in synaptic neuroscience · 2023Review
- Article
- Evaluating the Physics and Repeatability of Human Brushers in Delivering Affective Touch.IEEE transactions on hapticsArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
rationaleAffiliative tactile interactions help regulate physiological arousal and confer resilience to acute and chronic stress. C-tactile afferents (CTs) are a population of unmyelinated, low threshold mechanosensitive cutaneous nerve fibres which respond optimally to a low force stimulus, moving at between 1 and 10 cm/s. As CT firing frequencies correlate positively with subjective ratings of touch pleasantness, they are hypothesised to form the first stage of encoding affiliative tactile interactions. Serotonin is a key modulator of social responses with known effects on bonding.
objectivesThe aim of the present study was to determine the effect of acutely lowering central serotonin levels on perceptions of CT-targeted affective touch.
methodsIn a double blind, placebo-controlled design, the effect of acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) on 25 female participants' ratings of directly and vicariously experienced touch was investigated. Psychophysical techniques were used to deliver dynamic tactile stimuli; some velocities were targeted to optimally activate CTs (1-10 cm/s), whereas other, faster and slower strokes fell outside the CT optimal range. Discriminative tactile function, cold pain threshold and tolerance were also measured.
resultsATD significantly increased pleasantness ratings of both directly and vicariously experienced affective touch, increasing discrimination of the specific hedonic value of CT targeted velocities. While ATD had no effect on either tactile or cold pain thresholds, there was a trend for reduced tolerance to cold pain.
conclusionsThese findings are consistent with previous reports that depletion of central serotonin levels modulates neural and behavioural responsiveness to appetitive sensory signals.
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.