Brain mechanisms for processing discriminative and affective touch in 7-month-old infants

Affective touch has been associated with affiliative behavior during early stages of infant development; however, its underlying brain mechanisms are still poorly understood. This study used fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy) to examine both affective and discriminative touch in 7- month-old infants (n=35). Infants were provided affective stimuli on the forearm for 10 sec followed by a 20 sec rest period. The protocol was repeated for discriminative touch, and both affective and discriminative stimuli were given in a counterbalanced order. Brain activation (oxy-hemoglobin and deoxy-hemoglobin levels) in the somatosensory and temporal regions was registered during administration of the stimuli. There was an increase in oxy-hemoglobin and decrease in deoxy-hemoglobin only in the somatosensory region in response to both affective and discriminative touch. No other activations were found. Seven-month-old infants’ brain activation in the somatosensory cortex was similar for both discriminative and affective touch, but the stimuli did not elicit any activation in the temporal region/ pSTS. Our study is the first to suggest that 7-month-old infants do not yet recruit socio-emotional brain areas in response to affective touch.