# The Role of the Primate Amygdala in Social and Affective Touch

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA · 2020 · $571,526

## Abstract

Touch is our first emotional language – the language that allows us to receive and understand affective
signals and help lay the foundation for future social bonds. Despite the widely recognized importance of
touch in brain development and in affective and social communication throughout life, remarkably little
is known about its cellular neural substrate. Relatively recent discoveries showed that the skin contains
specializations for detecting and evaluating the pleasantness of touch. It is unclear how these signals
might be processed in the brain. It is clear, however, that the amygdala is required for processing the
social and emotional significance of sensory stimuli, regardless of modality. Studies that showed this role
of the primate amygdala focused almost exclusively on vision. Recently we have reported the presence of
touch-responsive neurons in the primate amygdala. We will expand on this initial finding and determine
how these touch-responsive cells respond to the basic sensory features of tactile stimuli: location and
intensity (Aim 1). Next, we will determine whether tactile cells in the amygdala encode the subjective
value of touch (Aim 2). Given the important role of the amygdala in processing social stimuli, we will then
determine how the social dimension of touch factors into the activity of tactile cells (Aim 3). Specifically,
we will simultaneously monitor neural responses to touch in the amygdala and somatosensory cortex
and compare neural responses to the same type of social touch, delivered to the same skin area, by two
individuals with whom the recipient has a different social experience. We expect tactile cells in the
amygdala, but not in the somatosensory cortex, to discriminate between social partners, supporting the
idea that the amygdala extracts the social-affective dimension (value) of stimuli. Collectively, these three
aims provide a conceptually new and technically advanced physiological framework for
understanding how the primate amygdala responds to and evaluates tactile stimuli that vary in
subjective value and social significance. Understanding the cellular machinery of affective touch in the
primate brain is expected to provide important insights into why touch processing is so profoundly
altered in functional pain syndromes, autism, and numerous other mental disorders.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9990849
- **Project number:** 5R01MH121009-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
- **Principal Investigator:** Katalin M Gothard
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $571,526
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-09-01 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9990849

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9990849, The Role of the Primate Amygdala in Social and Affective Touch (5R01MH121009-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9990849. Licensed CC0.

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