An Update on Social Touch
How Does Humans’ Social Nature Emerge at the Periphery of the Body?
Abstract
Abstract. Recent research suggests that early physical touch provided by caregivers play a critical role in cognitive and affective development. The discovery of the C-tactile fibers – which selectively respond to low-speed physical stimulations, such as maternal affectionate touch and caresses – opened a promising field of research into the physiological bases of human togetherness. Notably, C-tactile fiber stimulation is primarily elaborated in a specific brain area (i.e., the insula), which is involved in affective and socio-cognitive skills as well as in the development of an individual’s body image. In the present study, we provide a narrative overview of the research conducted so far on the role of maternal affectionate touch in infants’ cognitive and emotional development, and we highlight potential implications for clinical practice with children and adults.
References
2016). Multimodal infant-directed communication: How caregivers combine tactile and linguistic cues. Journal of Child Language, 44(5), 1088–1116. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000916000416
(1989). The skin ego. Yale University Press.
(2012). Variations in postnatal maternal care and the epigenetic regulation of metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 expression and hippocampal function in the rat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(Suppl 2), 17200–17207. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1204599109
(2021). Biopsychosocial intersections of social/affective touch and psychiatry: Implications of “touch hunger” during COVID-19. The International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 20764021997485. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764021997485
(2020). Burnout and somatic symptoms among frontline healthcare professionals at the peak of the Italian COVID-19 pandemic. Psychiatry Research, 290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113129
(1972). What do you say after you say hello? The psychology of human destiny. Grove Press.
(2021). Glucocorticoid receptor gene (NR3C1) methylation during the first thousand days: Environmental exposures and developmental outcomes. Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews, 125, 493–502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.03.003
(2019). The maternal brain: Neural responses to infants in mothers with and without mood disorder. Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews, 107, 196–207.
(2009). Somatotopic organization of gentle touch processing in the posterior insular cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(29), 9314–9320. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0400-09.2009
(1957). Studies on hysteria. Basic Books.
(2015). Many faces, one rule: The role of perceptual expertise in infants’ sequential rule learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01595
(2019). Sustained efficacy of kangaroo care for repeated painful procedures over neonatal intensive care unit hospitalization: A single-blind randomized controlled trial. Pain, 160(11), 2580–2588. https://doi.org/10.1097/j.pain.0000000000001646
(2019). Social touch and human development. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 35, 5–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2018.04.009
(2009). The Rorschach texture response: A construct validation study using attachment theory. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91(6), 601–610. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223890903230931
(2018). Maternal regulation of pups’ cortical activity: Role of serotonergic signaling. ENeuro, 5(4). https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0093-18.2018
(2019). Gentle touch perception: From early childhood to adolescence. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 35, 81–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2017.07.009
(2020). Effects of quarantine on mental health of populations affected by Covid-19. Journal of Affective Disorders, 275, 253–254. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.06.063
(2013). Touch as an interpersonal emotion regulation process in couples’ daily lives: The mediating role of psychological intimacy. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(10), 1373–1385. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167213497592
(2021). Is touch in romantic relationships universally beneficial for psychological well-being? The role of attachment avoidance. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 47(10), 1495–1509. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220977709
(2019). Tune to touch: Affective touch enhances learning of face identity in 4-month-old infants. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 35, 42–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2017.11.002
(2021). Touch in times of COVID-19: Touch hunger hurts. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 30(1–2), e4–e5. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.15488
(2010). Quantitative assessment of pleasant touch. Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews, 34(2), 192–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.02.003
(2006). Infants predict other people’s action goals. Nature Neuroscience, 9(7), 878–879. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1729
(2016). From faces to hands: Changing visual input in the first two years. Cognition, 152, 101–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.03.005
(2013). Body perception in newborns. Current Biology, 23(23), 2413–2416. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.10.017
(2015). Newborn body perception: Sensitivity to spatial congruency. Infancy, 20(4), 455–465. https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12083
(2000). The meanings of touch in psychoanalysis: A time for reassessment. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 20(1), 21–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/07351692009348873
(1961). The ego and the id. Norton.
(2021). COVID-19 and post-traumatic stress disorder: The perfect “storm” for mental health. Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine, 22(4), Article
(1162 . https://doi.org/10.3892/etm.2021.105962021). Touch-hunger: An unexplored consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 43(4), 362–363. https://doi.org/10.1177/02537176211014469
(2021). Togetherness, beyond the eyes: A systematic review on the interaction between visually impaired children and their parents. Infant Behaviour and Development, 64, Article
(101590 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.1015902021). Associations between single-family room care and breastfeeding rates in preterm infants. Journal of Human Lactation: Official Journal of International Lactation Consultant Association, 37(3), 593–602. https://doi.org/10.1177/0890334420962709
(2021). Effectiveness of the close collaboration with parents intervention on parent-infant closeness in NICU. BMC Pediatrics, 21(1), Article
(28 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-020-02474-22014). The effect of kangaroo care on neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants. The Journal of Perinatal & Neonatal Nursing, 28(4), 290–299. https://doi.org/10.1097/JPN.0000000000000062
(2013). Rorschach texture responses are related to adult attachment via tactile imagery and emotion. Rorschachiana, 34(2), 115–136. https://doi.org/10.1027/1192-5604/a000045
(2015). The human face as a dynamic tool for social communication. Current Biology, 25(14), R621–R634. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.05.052
(2017). Affectionate touch to promote relational, psychological, and physical well-being in adulthood: A theoretical model and review of the research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 21(3), 228–252. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868316650307
(2012). Full-term and very-low-birth-weight preterm infants’ self-regulating behaviours during a still-face interaction: Influences of maternal touch. Infant Behaviour and Development, 35(4), 779–791. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2012.07.023
(2009). A longitudinal investigation of maternal touching across the first 6 months of life: Age and context effects. Infant Behaviour and Development, 32(3), 344–349. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2009.04.005
(2020). Damage to the right insula disrupts the perception of affective touch. eLife, 9. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.47895
(2020). Social support modulates subjective and neural responses to sad mental imagery. Behavioural Brain Research, 380, Article
(112433 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2019.1124332017). How the brain codes intimacy: The neurobiological substrates of romantic touch. Human Brain Mapping, 38(9), 4525–4534. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.23679
(2014). The effect of friendly touch on delay-of-gratification in preschool children. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67(11), 2123–2133. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.907325
(1997). Maternal care, hippocampal glucocorticoid receptors, and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal responses to stress. Science, 277(5332), 1659–1662. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.277.5332.1659
(2009). Coding of pleasant touch by unmyelinated afferents in humans. Nature Neuroscience, 12(5), 547–548. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2312
(2015). Discrimination of biomechanically possible and impossible hand movements at birth. Child Development, 86(2), 632–641. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12329
(2014). Mutual touch during mother-infant face-to-face still-face interactions: Influences of interaction period and infant birth status. Infant Behaviour & Development, 37(3), 258–267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.04.005
(2014). Discriminative and affective touch: Sensing and feeling. Neuron, 82(4), 737–755. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2014.05.001
(2005). Environmental programming of stress responses through DNA methylation: Life at the interface between a dynamic environment and a fixed genome. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 7(2), 103–123.
(2019). Mothers’ and fathers’ early tactile contact behaviours during triadic and dyadic parent-infant interactions immediately after birth and at 3-months postpartum: Implications for early care behaviours and intervention. Infant Behaviour and Development, 57, Article
(101347 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.1013472020). Being in touch: The potential benefits and the use of attuned touch in psychotherapy for functional neurological symptoms (FNS). European Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 4(3), Article
(100161 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejtd.2020.1001612020). The body comes first. Embodied reparation and the co-creation of infant bodily-self. Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews, 113, 77–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2020.03.003
(2015). Implications of epigenetics and stress regulation on research and developmental care of preterm infants. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing, 44(2), 174–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/1552-6909.12559
(2015). A randomised trial of continuous skin-to-skin contact after preterm birth and the effects on salivary cortisol, parental stress, depression, and breastfeeding. Early Human Development, 91(1), 63–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2014.12.005
(2009). Infant touch with gaze and affective behaviours during mother–infant still-face interactions: Co-occurrence and functions of touch. Infant Behaviour & Development, 32(4), 392–403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2009.06.006
(2021). Touch research – quo vadis? A plea for high-quality clinical trials. Brain Sciences, 11(1), Article
(25 . https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci110100252021). Hedonic responses to touch are modulated by the perceived attractiveness of the caresser. Neuroscience, 464, 79–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroscience.2020.10.007
(2010). The neurophysiology of unmyelinated tactile afferents. Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews, 34(2), 185–191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2008.09.011
(2007). The polyvagal perspective. Biological Psychology, 74(2), 116–143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2006.06.009
(2020). Maternal caregiving and DNA methylation in human infants and children: Systematic review. Genes, Brain and Behaviour, 19(3), Article
(e12616 . https://doi.org/10.1111/gbb.126162016). SLC6A4 methylation as an epigenetic marker of life adversity exposures in humans: A systematic review of literature. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 71, 7–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.08.021
(2021). The paternal brain in action: A review of human fathers’ fMRI brain responses to child-related stimuli. Brain Sciences, 11(6), Article
(816 . https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci110608162020). Understanding the role and function of maternal touch in children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. Infant Behaviour and Development, 58, Article
(101420 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.1014202021). Clinical pointers from developing self-awareness. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 63(4), 382–386. https://doi.org/10.1111/dmcn.14767
(2009). Neurophysiologic assessment of brain maturation after an 8-week trial of skin-to-skin contact on preterm infants. Clinical Neurophysiology, 120(10), 1812–1818. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2009.08.004
(2015). Why the body comes first: Effects of experimenter touch on infants’ word finding. Developmental Science, 18(1), 155–164. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12182
(2012). Frequency of infant stroking reported by mothers moderates the effect of prenatal depression on infant behavioural and physiological outcomes. PLoS One, 7(10), Article
(e45446 . https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.00454462019). Social touch alters newborn monkey behaviour. Infant Behaviour & Development, 57, Article
(101368 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.1013682006). Cortical pain responses in the infant brain. Pain, 123(3), Article
(332 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2006.05.0092004). Psychologists’ use of touch in individual psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, 41(3), 332–345. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-3204.41.3.332
(2010). Neonatal outcomes of extremely preterm infants from the NICHD Neonatal Research Network. Pediatrics, 126(3), 443–456. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2009-2959
(2015). Topography of social touching depends on emotional bonds between humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 112(45), 13811–13816. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1519231112
(2018). The integration of audio-tactile information is modulated by multimodal social interaction with physical contact in infancy. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 30, 31–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2017.12.001
(2021). Social touch in mother–infant interaction affects infants’ subsequent social engagement and object exploration. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-00642-4
(2011). A smile enhances 3‐month‐olds’ recognition of an individual face. Infancy, 16(3), 306–317. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2010.00047.x
(2019). Neural correlates of gentle skin stroking in early infancy. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 35, 36–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2017.10.004
(2020). COVID-19 pandemic and mental health consequences: Systematic review of the current evidence. Brain, Behaviour, and Immunity, 89, 531–542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2020.05.048
(2017). C-tactile afferents: Cutaneous mediators of oxytocin release during affiliative tactile interactions? Neuropeptides, 64, 27–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.npep.2017.01.001
(2019). “The skin is the cradle of the soul”: Didier Anzieu on the skin-ego, boundaries, and boundlessness. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 67(1), 37–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003065119829701
(2011). Physical touch in psychotherapy: Why are we not touching more? Body Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 6(1), 17–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/17432979.2010.508597
(2007). Newborn Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program (NIDCAP)–family-centered developmentally supportive care. Early Human Development, 83(7), 443–449. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2007.03.006
(