触觉的情绪功能及其神经生理机制

Affective function of touch and the neurophysiological mechanism

触觉是个体探知外部世界的重要感觉通道,其情绪功能在维系社会联结、促进人际沟通等方面具有重要作用。触觉的情绪功能一方面表现为通过触觉动作本身直接传递情绪信息,另一方面则是通过增强注意和锐化社会评价的方式促进个体对跨通道情绪信息的加工。神经生理学研究发现,触觉情绪信息由无髓鞘C纤维介导,经脊髓丘脑束通路投射于岛叶(头面部触觉情绪信息的传导路径尚不明确),并在杏仁核、内侧前额叶、后颞上沟等"社会脑"网络的核心区域被精细加工。未来还应对触觉情绪的人际依赖性、文化独特性、操作标准化,及其在神经水平上与感觉-辨识系统间的关联性与独立性做深入探究。

Touch is an important sensory channel for individuals to explore the external world,and its affective function plays an important role in maintaining social bonding and promoting interpersonal communication.Tactile action itself can directly convey distinct emotions,and it also promotes the cross-modality emotional processing by enhancing attention and sharpening social evaluation of emotional cues.At neurophysiological level,C-tactile-mediated affective tactile stimulation project in spinothalamic tract(STT)pathway(the spinal signaling of orofacial C-fiber mediated affective touch is still unclear),bypass the primary somatosensory cortex,directly project to the insular cortex,and then process in the amygdala,medial prefrontal cortex(mPFC),posterior superior temporal sulcus(pSTS)and other core areas of the“social brain”neural network.Future research should pay more attention to the interpersonal dependence,cultural uniqueness,and stimulus standardization of affective touch,and try to reveal the relevance and independence between the two tactile sub-systems at neural level.