ArticleSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2023
Role of medial prefrontal cortex and primary somatosensory cortex in self and other-directed vicarious social touch: a TMS study.
Article in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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4 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Differential brain activation and network connectivity in social interactions presence and absence of physical contact.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Gestational diabetes induces autistic-like behaviors in offspring by disrupting the GABAergic system.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Neurophysiological evidence of motor contribution to vicarious affective touch.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- To touch or to be touched? comparing appraisal of vicarious execution and reception of interpersonal touch.PloS one · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
Conflicting evidence points to the contribution of several key nodes of the 'social brain' to the processing of both discriminatory and affective qualities of interpersonal touch. Whether the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) and the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), two brain areas vital for tactile mirroring and affective mentalizing, play a functional role in shared representations of C-tactile (CT) targeted affective touch is still a matter of debate. Here, we used offline continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) to mPFC, S1 and vertex (control) prior to participants providing ratings of vicarious touch pleasantness for self and others delivered across several body sites at CT-targeted velocities. We found that S1-cTBS led to a significant increase in touch ratings to the self, with this effect being positively associated to levels of interoceptive awareness. Conversely, mPFC-cTBS reduced pleasantness ratings for touch to another person. These effects were not specific for CT-optimal (slow) stroking velocities, but rather they applied to all types of social touch. Overall, our findings challenge the causal role of the S1 and mPFC in vicarious affective touch and suggest that self- vs other-directed vicarious touch responses might crucially depend on the specific involvement of key social networks in gentle tactile interactions.
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