Social touch and allostasis

Interoception, the sense of the body’s physiological state, incorporates information from the skin. Both interoceptive input and social/affective touch are conveyed to the central nervous system through small diameter, unmyelinated afferent fibers that ultimately converge on the posterior insula. This relation is traceable developmentally to the heavy reliance of the fetus and infant on their mother/caregiver for autonomic regulation. Caregiving...