Department of Dynamic and Clinic Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Cognitive and Motor Rehabilitation and Neuroimaging Unit, IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia), Rome, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2020 Jun 15;10(1):9658. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-66606-5.
Touch, such as affective caress, can be interpreted as being pleasant. The emotional valence that is assigned to touch is related to certain bottom-up factors, such as the optimal activation of C-tactile (CT) afferents. Tactile processing with a hedonic or emotional component has been defined as affective touch-a component that CT fibers are likely to convey. Tactile deficiencies are frequent in the psychiatric population but also in healthy people with disorganized attachment; accordingly, it is likely that affective difficulties in adults with disorganized attachment are reflected in altered perception of affective touch. To test this hypothesis, we combined methods from clinical psychology, psychophysics, and neuroimaging. We found that people with a history of traumatic parental bonds and a disorganized attachment pattern perceive a "caress-like" stimulus as being unpleasant, whereas participants with organized attachment consider the same tactile stimulation to be pleasant. Further, unlike in organized adults, the responses of disorganized adults to CT and non-CT stimulation activated limbic and paralimbic structures in a fight-or-flight manner, suggesting that early experiences with parental deficiencies shape the physiological responses of peripheral CT fibers and central nervous networks.
触摸，如情感抚摸，可以被解释为令人愉悦的。分配给触摸的情绪效价与某些自下而上的因素有关，例如 C 型触觉（CT）传入纤维的最佳激活。具有享乐或情感成分的触觉处理被定义为情感触觉——CT 纤维可能传递的一种成分。触觉缺陷在精神科人群中很常见，但在依恋关系紊乱的健康人群中也很常见；因此，依恋关系紊乱的成年人在情感触觉感知方面的困难很可能反映在他们对情感触觉的感知改变上。为了验证这一假设，我们结合了临床心理学、心理物理学和神经影像学的方法。我们发现，有创伤性父母关系史和依恋关系紊乱的人会将“抚摸样”刺激感知为不愉快，而有组织依恋的参与者则认为同样的触觉刺激是愉快的。此外，与有组织的成年人不同，依恋关系紊乱的成年人对 CT 和非 CT 刺激的反应以战斗或逃跑的方式激活边缘和旁边缘结构，这表明早期与父母的缺陷有关的经历会塑造外周 CT 纤维和中枢神经系统网络的生理反应。
