Evolutionarily conserved neural responses to affective touch transcend consciousness and change with age

Interesting work from Charbonneau et al. in macaque monkeys on the affective (gentle, pleasant) touch pathways that in humans use a different neural network than pathways of discriminative touch:

Significance

Affective touch is thought to be a critical substrate for the formation of the social relationships which exist as a foundation for primate societies. Although grooming behavior in monkeys appears to recapitulate features of affective touch behavior in humans, it is unknown whether affective touch activates the same neural networks in other primate species and whether this activation requires conscious perception or changes across the lifespan. We stimulated lightly anesthetized ...