Damage to the right insula disrupts the perception of affective touch

Abstract
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Abstract

Specific, peripheral C-tactile afferents contribute to the perception of tactile pleasure, but the brain areas involved in their processing remain debated. We report the first human lesion study on the perception of C-tactile touch in right hemisphere stroke patients (N = 59), revealing that right posterior and anterior insula lesions reduce tactile, contralateral and ipsilateral pleasantness sensitivity, respectively. These findings corroborate previous imaging studies regarding the role of the posterior insula in the perception of affective touch. However, our findings about the crucial role of the anterior insula for ipsilateral affective touch perception open new avenues of enquiry regarding the cortical organization of this tactile system.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/fyrwc/?view_only=75773c749be84432994beca994481988).

The following data sets were generated

(2019) Affective Touch Lesion Study
Open Science Framework, fyrwc.

https://osf.io/fyrwc/?view_only=75773c749be84432994beca994481988

Article and author information

Author details

Louise P Kirsch

Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, Sorbonne Universite, Paris, France

For correspondence
kirsch.lou@gmail.com

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-8418-776X
Sahba Besharati

The Department of Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Christina Papadaki

Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Laura Crucianelli

Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Sara Bertagnoli

Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Nick Ward

Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Valentina Moro

Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Paul M Jenkinson

Department of Psychology, School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Aikaterini Fotopoulou

Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

European Research Council (ERC-2012-STG GA313755)

Aikaterini Fotopoulou

MIUR Italy (PRIN 20159CZFJK)

Valentina Moro

University of Verona (Bando di Ateneo per la Ricerca di Base 2015 project MOTOS)

Valentina Moro

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: All participants gave written, informed consent to take part in the study and to publish. The local National Health System Ethics Committees approved the study (REC:05/Q0706/218), which was carried out in accordance to the Declaration of Helsinki.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.