Affective Touch: The Enigmatic Spinal Pathway of the C-Tactile Afferent

Marshall, Andrew G ORCID: 0000-0001-8273-7089 and McGlone, Francis P (2020) Affective Touch: The Enigmatic Spinal Pathway of the C-Tactile Afferent NEUROSCIENCE INSIGHTS, 15. 2633105520925072-. ISSN 2633-1055, 2633-1055

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Abstract

C-tactile afferents are hypothesized to form a distinct peripheral channel that encodes the affective nature of touch. Prevailing views indicate they project, as with other unmyelinated afferents, in lamina I-spinothalamic pathways that relay homeostatically relevant information from the body toward cortical regions involved in interoceptive processing. However, in a recent study, we found that spinothalamic ablation in humans, while profoundly impairing the canonical spinothalamic modalities of pain, temperature, and itch, had no effect on benchmark psychophysical affective touch metrics. These novel findings appear to indicate that perceptual judgments about the affective nature of touch pleasantness do not depend on the integrity of the lamina I-spinothalamic tract. In this commentary, we further discuss the implications of these unexpected findings. Intuitively, they suggest that signaling of emotionally relevant C-tactile mediated touch occurs in an alternative ascending pathway. However, we also argue that the deficits seen following interruption of a putative C-tactile lamina I-spinothalamic relay might be barely perceptible—a feature that would underline the importance of the C-tactile afferent in neurodevelopment.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	C-tactile, affective touch, somatosensation, spinothalamic
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	05 Aug 2020 15:22
Last Modified:	23 May 2026 03:16
DOI:	10.1177/2633105520925072
Related Websites:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3096464
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